This does beg the question: why aren’t the popular schools expanding to meet demand? My guess from other comments is that the center city location is often the

This does beg the question: why aren’t the popular schools expanding to meet demand? My guess from other comments is that the center city location is often the driving reason for the pick, so the cost of acquiring similar real estate is prohibitive (also meaning that the the students selected for those schools are “unfairly” enjoying a high imputed income by enjoying that location) An interesting feature of the US charter school system in my area is that because their funding is directly tied to headcount (I believe there is bonus money for special ed students too), they are typically always looking at how to expand. Each school runs its own lottery, and being over-subscribed is looked at as a signal they need to expand their offerings.