I used to tutor at a Boys & Girls Club in a very low-income area in Massachusetts. The way they assign students to schools is weird (at least to me, I didn’t grow up here). Students need to apply, even to public schools, and they’re offered spots through some combination of lottery, location, and grades/test scores. One of the girls I tutored went to a school that was pretty far away from her home - something like a 90 minute bus ride thanks to traffic. When I asked her about how she ended up at a school so far away she casually explained that her parents had to be at work early so she had to go to a school where she’d get on the bus as early as possible. It broke my heart.