It was a decision intended to foster racial and socioeconomic diversity, adopted in 2020[1]. It will likely be reversed in the 2026/2027 school year[2]
I wonder if future centuries will look at the current obsession with diversity (tbh the peak is visibly behind us) the same way that we look at the ancient Egyptians collecting amulets with holy dung beetles: an utterly incomprehensible ritual.
The lottery has been around since way before 2020, I believe.
You do get preferential assignment to one school close to you. Most schools can take in all the kids that have this neighborhood preference but I believe there are a couple that don’t. (This is for Kindergarten, TK is more of a mess).
The key of the new proposal is how they are going to define zones (neighbourhoods). Knowing the politics in SF, I think they will probably say that zone is 7-miles radius (and SF is 49 square miles).
[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WxAVUXfKCdhSlFa8rYZqTBC-Zmz...
[2] https://www.sfusd.edu/schools/enroll/student-assignment-poli...