I was wondering if you are put into a school by location or you have the choice to choose.

I live in Jersey City, but I don't have kids. Unfortunately JC public schools are by far the worst in the area, everyone we know who has kids either moves to NYC proper or into suburban NJ (which generally have excellent public schools). They fairly recently more or less doubled our property tax to fund the schools better, but from what I've seen locally that's not made much difference.

To answer your original question, I don't know how the allocation process works.

Usually just allocated, you don't get to pick. Looks like it's the same in Jersey City, you can call the number here to find out the school for your address - https://www.jcboe.org/apps/pages/ind...REC_ID=1669353

Here it is as a map:

https://www.jcboe.org/apps/pages/ind...REC_ID=1667200

In rare circumstances, you can ask to move to another school, but it's far easier to just buy or rent a house in the school area you want.

+1

You may as well be in Johannesburg (South Africa) for what it’s worth.