If school choice (US here) became the norm and people could choose where they wanted to go, vs the current standard of attendance being based on where you live, how would that work? Basically, if everyone wants school X, and obviously school X can’t accommodate everyone, how will it work? Obviously not everyone would choose X; some want Y for location, others want Z for certain programs, but in general..?
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Normally kids are sent to their local schools. But people in our neighborhood might want to send their kids to better schools. Governments create programs to help the kids.
My brothers city in Illinois, they do random drawing to determine what school your child (each) goes to school. Your children may end up at different schools unless you ask for an exception. At least that’s what he tells me to justify his kids going to Jesus school for $10k ea a year.
>Basically, if everyone wants school X, and obviously school X can’t accommodate everyone, how will it work?
I’m from a country where school choice is normal:
The school will establish some selection mechanism, usually based on distance, social situation of the parents (poor parents get priority as rich parents are expected to be able to find alternatives more easily), special needs (like a school being the only one able to accomodate for some disability, or a problematic social background) and also simply random chance.
This purposely prevents “elite schools” from forming, by being forced to accept everyone as these rules apply for private schools as well (and the money must be a percentage of the income of the parents)
There’s a lottery system in place for schools that get too many students who want it. This lottery is usually skewed to prevent lower scoring students from getting in if there’s no regulation and checks to stop it.
As you have noted, it is impractical for parents to have a completely free choice over where they send their children for school.
The solution to this is that schools will place limits on attendance, the most obvious being a maximum cap on the number of students they can support. Any students wishing to enroll above this number will be denied and will have to enroll elsewhere.
In most countries there will be some governmental oversight over public schooling at least, so they will to some degree be paying attention to the population and available resources to ensure they can provide for the people under their jurisdiction. When it comes to schools this often means setting boundaries for attendance so that pupils living close to a school will get priority over those living further away (and closer to other, less desirable schools), but often there will be exceptions made as appropriate.
In the UK this does mean schooling can be a big factor in choosing where to live – buying a home in a certain area will place you within the catchment of a particular school, so people will factor this into their decision (sometimes to the level of moving home when children reach a certain age to ensure a place in a specific school).
One example I can give you is how it’s done in my home country. Your school from grades 1 to 8 are determined by where you live by default but parents can request a transfer if they want.
At the end of grade 8 students do a standardized test, and in addition high schools can ask for an in-person interview for specific classes (for example if you want to go to a class that focuses on math, then they’ll test your math skills).
There’s a central state agency (think government agency in the US) that handles admissions, you register your order of choice and it will sort students into high schools according to how they did on the tests.
Private high schools can have a completely different admissions process but there’s not so many of them here.
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