Not sure what the comment you responded to was, but I used public transit to get to my junior high. The school provided me with a transit pass for free, which was really nice. I also live in the US. I actually only took the school bus to school for first grade.

First grade - school bus 2-6 - walking and they also did not have school buses for anyone but kindergarten 7-9 - transit, they also had no school buses 10-12 - I was either driven or drove. They did have school buses, but I wasn’t allowed to use them because I lived out of the district

Now, to be fair, I had a pretty unique situation with almost all of my schooling.

The elementary school, all of the kids that went were super close and lived in a super dense area, so walking was feasible and buses were not really needed

Junior high was a “choice” school. Meaning it was part of the public system, but it had a special theme to it and students had to request to go and they only let in a few students each year. If you did they in, you went to the normal school instead. The school had a total of 90 students and so buses were not feasible, especially since all the kids came from all over the district. They provided bus passes instead.

High school, I lived outside the district and had requested to go the school anyways, and part of the agreement to allow me to go was that I had to get my own way there. My older sibling could drive my first year and then I drove myself the next two years.