Is this actually legit full true? It might be less of a gradient than other places, but in our two years in Norway our children went to two different public schools which were in immediately adjacent suburbs - both good locations, and there was a definite difference in the management of the schools which was visible through all our interactions with them.
The second school was clearly better in our experience, despite being part of the same system.
Norway isn't "EU" for those purposes, but I suspect it's similar. The same way that different hire car offices or different pizza parlours in the same "chain" can have quite different quality despite theoretically operating under the same policies.
(edited to add)
While these things, in theory, normalise out over time as staffing changes in individual schools or individual franchisees - your kids are often only at each school for a handful of years, so there'll definitely be some attempt to find the better ones based on what you hear from parents of kids a year or two ahead... and those with enough money to just move house into the "best" zone will still get their kids into the better school.
Czechia doesn't have multiculturalism so it therefore doesn't have this concept.
So that would be all our schools. :) (Czechs and Vietnamese, respectively)
> and children who will not be disruptive in class
In my experience that seems to depend more on the type of school rather than on location. Gymnasia would be expected to have better-behaved students than vocational schools, even if the students come from the same region. I suspect that has a lot to do with entrance examinations. If you can pass the entrance examination for a Gymnasium, you're much less likely to be someone who had been disruptive in class in the past, and consequently also not likely to be disruptive in class in your new school.
Do Czechia have social classes? If yes do they live in different neighborhoods?
Here in Melbourne, Australia - many schools allow some out-of-district students - as a percentage of their total enrollment - but pretty much all public schools are required to make a place available to any student inside their district (which are drawn based on distances between schools, so they're sometimes pretty weird for transport)
It depends on which school you like. In case of high schools, if you choose a vocational high school (which teaches a specific craft or a group of crafts), as opposed to a gymnasium (a school that prepares you for further university studies), it also depends on your intended future profession.
> Presumably there are limits on how many places are at each school
That's what standardized entrance exams sort out.
> and you need some way to make sure that a child doesn't wind up with the only place left for them being on the other side of a city - so you'd have some degree of locality.
We have good public transport that was free for schoolchildren (and for high school students was very affordable), so this wasn't a problem for me even if my school was on the other side of town.
Do you have children of your own in the school system? I found that my expectations didn't always match the reality either in Australia or in Norway when it came down to actual experience for my kids.
Myself, I grew up in a remote area and was home schooled, and then for the final years of high school I went to the closest school, about 90 min drive away, so I lived in a lodging by myself during the week from age 16.
BTW the fact that districts limiting attendance don't exist means that you don't have to change a school if your parents move, which happened to me at least once. Or, that your parents are prevented from moving if you want to keep your school.
Also in the EU country I live in schools are managed centrally and equally, so there is no such thing as a "good school district" I read happening in other countries, which seems to expand inequality and cause financial hardship to their population for no reason other than the ideological assumption that central planning is to be avoided.