How exactly does a school district work, e.g. kid in primary school?

I guess it's easier to ask because the available information in the Internet is overwhelming.

We are planning a relocation to the US and I understand there are school districts where the kid belongs based on where you live (and pay taxes.) So far so good, same in Germany: there is a list of all the streets / house numbers in town and the assigned school.

But here that's a 1:1 mapping, let's say we live at street x number y, then our kid HAS to go to the assigned school.

Now when I browse the homepage of a US school district, there are usually a bunch of schools mentioned. Who decides where the kid is going?

Submitted January 22, 2023 at 01:26PM by MathEngineer42 https://ift.tt/V96N2XC