different community... outsider

Sure, but that's only because you "belong" to the school that's closer to you, so going somewhere else feels different than if you didn't have a default. If nobody had a default, everyone is an "outsider."

What do you think would happen if most people in your neighborhood went to a different school? I think your notion of what a "community" is would be quite different. That's the case for my kids, there are ~10 kids of elementary age in my neighborhood, and they go to ~5 different schools. They still play together, and my kids play with kids from their school, we just need to drive them around a bit more. When my kids finish elementary school, they'll go to the local public school for the rest of their education, so they'll get that experience as well.

If you had 3-4 schools to pick from that were all equally "far" in terms of bus access, wouldn't you prefer to go to the one that interests you more? You'd make friends with similar interests instead of just friends who happen to be in the same class as you, which means your extracurriculars are more than just a place to hang out with friends.

And yeah, it's not all about getting a job, it's about learning how to learn, as well as learning to set and achieve goals. And what better way is there to do that than to realize that you actually need those boring classes to really do what you enjoy? For example:

• if you love political science, you need some math to be able to run statistics to research a policy proposal
• if you love programming, you need to be a competent writer to collaborate on projects
• if you love music, you need to understand theory to really understand music structure

And so on. Kids should be exposed to a variety of subjects, but they should also be encouraged to pursue their passions, and the boring stuff should help them with what they're truly interested in.

limiting opportunities to specific locations

And that's always going to be an issue.

Let's say a city has three schools:

• A - inner city school with mostly working class families, and therefore limited parental involvement
• B - school in a wealthy area with many single income households, and thus lots of parental support
• C - rural school with mostly farmers and day laborers; limited parental involvement

If funding is exactly the same, where do you think teachers are going to want to go? Obviously the one with more support from parents. And the inner city school is likely to be more difficult because the kids likely have less support at home, so they'll struggle with independent learning. So I guess we could pay teachers more to teach at the other two, but does that really solve the problem?

Instead of trying to equalize the schools, how about moving the students around as needed? Pardon the stereotypes, but let's say school A has a great sports program, school B has a great STEM program, and school C has a great fine arts program. Inner city kids could choose to go to B or C if they aren't interested in sports, wealthy kids could go to A or C if they're not interested in STEM, etc, and the only difference would be which bus they get on. You'd get better mixing of students in classes, kids would likely be more engaged because they chose that school, and if kids are already familiar with taking the city bus, they can experience what life is like from a different background.

Growing up, I had friends from various economic and ethnic backgrounds because my school covered a wide range in its boundaries, and now there's a new school that separates the wealthier area from the poorer area. I want my kids to have that exposure that I had and mix with those of different backgrounds, and having school choice is a great way to get that.

we both want folks to get access to the resources they want and need

Absolutely. We just differ on who decides what those resources are and how they get them.

I think spontaneous order is a great thing and want to encourage more of that, whereas the two major parties think their respective solutions are better so they push a top down solution. I certainly believe that there's a place for top down solutions, but I think they're relied on too much.