Our local schools also have a proximity limitation. Within that range, you don't get a bus. Walk, bike, or get a ride. (Unsure what that is, as my children are still several years away from public school, as daycare doesn't run a bus)

With the US's current "kids walking alone is endangerment" climate, realistically that means all those kids get dropped off by car.

Having grown up rural, buses tend to shine. I had a 20 minute bus ride to and from town as it collected all the scattered children over there. Route changed yearly to accommodate new or leaving kids.

School ran a small fleet of buses covering the whole district. Routine (within a 5 min window over the years) pickup and dropoff times, the same drivers for years, more or less the same roads.

The vast majority of the time you’d only be out of range because your kid should be going to a different school. Rural areas are kind of the exception. But in suburbia? That’s not very common.

Oh, okay that's unexpected. When I accompanied my Australian cousins to school for a month we rode the school bus for 45 minutes each way.