We chose our neighborhood because we had to balance what we could afford and what was a workable commute. The result was a very nice neighborhood that was attached to very weak schools in a district boundary realignment. For us that meant private schools from the beginning, we budgeted for it and it has worked out wonderfully. One of my D’s middle school classmates played the “optimization” game when it was time for HS and it worked out very well. She lived in the same school district boundaries that we do which as I mentioned is majority low SES areas. She was very bright, ended up as the Val, attends Stanford and was accepted into UCB and UCLA. Her observations were that you had to take care in selecting your peer group, there were other kids who wanted to do well, and that many kids at her school didn’t realize that Alaska and Hawaii were states and not their own countries.
Another friend tried the same thing and it did not work out in the way that the family hoped. Her public school district was average, possibly slightly above average, pretty typical for the area without any low SES areas within the boundary. She was also Val, NMSF, mid 1500’s SAT, 4.3 weighted capped, 4.6W GPA with many APs, strong ECs and, she is visibly brighter than girl one. She was shut out at UCB, UCLA, and UCI. She was waitlisted at UCSD and UCD.
These two high schools are about two miles apart. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.