Typically American policy is to have a controlled reentry option for as much as possible. The disposable first stages of all rockets don't need a controlled ree

Typically American policy is to have a controlled reentry option for as much as possible. The disposable first stages of all rockets don't need a controlled reentry because they are always suborbital and thus their splashdown location is relatively well known ahead of time. The second stages are typically supposed to deorbit and burn up over water after a launch to LEO. There are occasional cases where something goes wrong and they fail to deorbit, which is when we sometimes hear of the burn up due to gradual orbit decay being witnessed over land.