Just another lottery, with more bells and whistles. The algorithm, more than likely is held together by the percentages, Historical data, the greatest preference is the neighbourhood school. Unless the neighbourhood school is seen by the parents as being unsuitable for their children.

What happens if parents do not put down all 8 schools? So many ifs, especially when 17 schools are not in the equation. ” The 17 schools that are still overseen by the Orleans Parish School Board will not be included. “

According to a comment posted - “Misnomer: those schools are NOT magnet programs any longer, they are charter schools, chartered through Orleans Parish rather than the RSD. The difference? SOMEHOW, they were allowed to be “selective” even though charter laws clearly state that schools must be open enrollment.”

Here is the school board site in question -
http://www.nops.k12.la.us/pages/parents_and_students

Only 1 out of the 17 schools received a failing mark.
But what really amazes me, is the prices at the school cafeterias. $2.00 will get a student a meal, and $3.00 for adults. Even cheaper for breakfast, at a cost of $1.00. In Canada, what ever the market will bear - the highest price. At the moment, in my corner of Canada, $8.00 per day.

At least the cafeteria food is standard across the 3 Orleans school districts. As for the Orleans Parish school district, I believe it was the only school district least impacted by hurricane Katrina. But I could be wrong about it…....it could be the reason that it was not included as part of the new method for open enrollment and placement of students.

Probably not a lottery.  It sounds like “co-operative game theory”.  A recent issue of the Economist had a lovely write-up, I’ll quote one paragraph:

“In 1962 Dave Gale (who died in 2008) and Mr Shapley, now 89, published a playful paper called “College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage”.  They noted the similarity between college admissions, in which students and universities are trying to pair up to their mutual satisfaction, and the marriage market, in which a fixed number of men and women are trying to find a match.  In romantic comedies, each man and woman marries their own true love.  In real life, some people settle for second-best, which can lead to lots of trouble.  If John and Mary love each other but are married to other people, they will be tempted to leave their current partner and marry each other.  But if John loves Mary, while Mary loves her husband more than John, both will stay put.”

I might want to go to Harvard, but I know my chances of getting in are slim, so I focus on my application to York.  Yet York might instead accept someone they want badly, only to lose that person to Harvard.  Every spring, this game plays out through multiple rounds of acceptances and rejections until almost everyone is unhappy.  Roth and Shapley won their Nobel for economics by showing how to improve this process.