When a world without cars is inconceivable, it becomes a presumed condition of the question that the answer must involve cars.

We're also talking about five year olds walking 1-2 mi at the end of a long day. Older kids, fine, but 5 is pretty young. I don't think my parents were comfortable with me walking/biking home alone until 4th grade.

There's also plenty of other valid use cases, such as if you are taking your kid to something after school. Or they have an activity which causes them to stay late. Or you don't want them to take the bus cause you're already in the neighborhood and why not pick them up as a treat (when I was growing up, buses didn't have a/c - riding in anything that didn't have a bunch of smelly sweating kids was definitely a treat)

Meanwhile we have busses that don't always go anywhere close to everyone's houses (or if they do, they may take multiple hours to get there after dropping off a hundred other kids), almost non-existent sidewalks in most suburbs, dumbasses who don't watch for people on bikes, and a court system that's regularly faulted the person on the bike for getting hit.

Greatest country!

Also, at least where I live, you have to have prior permission to ride the bus. Your parent is going to be late picking you up? Guess you're waiting outside cause they didn't pre sign the permission slip!

Ok that's lovely. And the ones who are being picked up individually by their parents? They don't wait in a line?