Relocating

Moving to Houston with school-age kids: how the school systems fit together

By the research team at School, Clearly.

AI-assisted research. Our method.

District, state and program pages read September 9, 2026. Every dated rule carries its school year.

At a glance

Three things settle most of it. The address you choose puts your child in one school district and one zoned school, and inside HISD the zoned school takes any resident child at any time of year. Every other route, the HISD School Choice lottery, a charter network's lottery, a private school's admissions and the state's education savings account, runs on its own calendar, so the month you arrive decides which of them are still open. And the first day at a public school needs a short set of documents. This page puts the district, state and program rules side by side for a family arriving from outside Houston, as they read on September 9, 2026. It names no school and ranks nothing.

Start with the address, because it picks the district and the zoned school

The Texas Education Agency's enrollment page, read September 9, 2026, says a child may enroll in the public school district where the child lives or choose another public option such as a charter school, that attendance zones and campus assignments are set by each district, and that the agency keeps no official attendance-zone maps. So the address has to be checked twice, at two levels. The agency's School District Locator is a map of every district boundary, searchable by district name, county or region, and its FAQ says that once you know the district, the district tells you the campus. The agency's finding-a-school page adds TXschools.gov, which searches for schools around an address.

Inside HISD the second level is the district's own tool. Its types-of-schools page says every student is assigned a zoned school by home address, that every student has a right to attend that school and may enroll at any time, and that School Navigator returns the zoned elementary, middle and high school for an address and grade. The district's pages speak of families within HISD boundaries and of parents who live outside them, so a Houston address is not always an HISD address. If the locator puts an address in another district, that district's own pages govern its zoned school and any choice program it runs; the pages on this site describe HISD, five charter networks and a dated sample of private schools.

Two things about an address are easy to miss from out of town. A bus is not part of a zoned school's promise for a school of choice: HISD's School Choice transportation page, in its 2026-27 wording, gives a bus only to a student living at least two miles from the school with one of its listed transfer codes, says stops may be three miles or more from home, and transports no pre-K child unless an IEP or Section 504 plan provides it (an IEP is an Individualized Education Program, the public school special education plan), so the drive at drop-off and at pickup belongs in the decision before the lease is signed. And a zoned elementary school can fill: the district's additional enrollment options page says that after the year starts, if an elementary grade is at capacity or capped, the campus directs the family to its hub school for enrollment. A family arriving in October should ask the zoned school whether the grade is capped before treating the address as settled. Our two-school fit checklist is built to hold that answer beside the school day, the aftercare and the cost.

Six routes, six calendars

A family from a single-district city meets five admission routes here and one funding program, and none of them shares a calendar. The table puts them side by side with the 2027-28 dates as published on September 9, 2026; each row links the page on this site that holds the full rule.

Route	Who decides admission	The 2027-28 calendar, as published September 9, 2026	If you arrive after the window
Your zoned HISD school	The address. No application and no lottery: HISD's types-of-schools page says every student has a right to attend the zoned school and may enroll at any time, and TEA's parental rights handbook, published August 2026, says no tuition can be charged to an eligible student.	None. The district's enrollment page gives a new-to-HISD family an online new-student pathway, open through the summer and into the school year, and its neighborhood-school post says to find the zoned school on School Navigator, complete the new student registration before the first day, and show up.	Enroll the same way on any school day. If the zoned elementary grade is at capacity, the campus sends you to its hub school (additional enrollment options page).
HISD School Choice	One application for any HISD school other than the zoned one, including every magnet program. A lottery decides Phase 1; the district's eligibility page says Phase 1 applications from residents within district boundaries are processed before out-of-district applications, so a family can apply before it has moved, and its application is processed after applications from district residents. Some programs add an entrance requirement; our HISD magnet application guide has the phases and the rules.	Phase 1 December 8, 2026 to February 12, 2027. Lottery notifications March 17, 2027, with an offer to accept by March 23, 2027 and later offers open for 5 calendar days. Phase 2 opens March 17, 2027, first come first served on remaining seats, and closes for current and returning students one week before school opens.	The district's dates page says Phase 2 remains open to accommodate students new to the district, after the cutoff that retires a current or returning student's application. A Phase 2 application joins the end of any Phase 1 waitlist. After notification day a hardship transfer is a separate route for ten situations; our HISD Phase 2 guide prints them.
HISD pre-K	The same portal on its own calendar. Free for a child who meets one of the conditions state law sets, which HISD prints as eight routes; tuition otherwise. Our HISD pre-K guide has the routes, the income chart and the 2026-27 rate.	Phase 1 January 19 to April 15, 2027. Lottery notifications and Phase 2 on May 4, 2027, with an offer to accept by May 11, 2027. Under the 2026-27 School Choice rule the district does not bus a pre-K child unless an IEP or Section 504 plan provides it.	The pre-K dates page said on September 9, 2026 that it was still accepting 2026-27 applications and that seats were available; for a school with space the working route is the School Choice office, because the page's dashboard link opened an unrelated document that day.
Charter networks	Each network runs its own application and draws at random when a campus has more applicants than seats; none publishes how many applied or how many seats it offered. TEA's admission guidance says a charter applies the state's residency rule to the geographic area its charter designates. Our charter schools list prints twenty campuses across five networks with each network's rule.	Two networks had posted a 2027-28 date on September 8, 2026: YES Prep's window runs October 1, 2026 to February 13, 2027 (its FAQ says February 12) with a lottery on February 22, 2027; IDEA's Houston lottery is February 20, 2027 with the deadline the day before. Harmony's standing window runs November 1 to February 10. KIPP Texas and Houston Classical had posted nothing for 2027-28.	Each network's own page says whether it still takes applications after its lottery; Houston Classical took them on a rolling basis after its February 9, 2026 lottery. Ask the network about the grade you need, because a campus can be full in one grade and open in the next.
Private schools	Each school runs its own admissions checklist by grade and decides which grades take new students. Our private schools list prints twenty schools by grade band with their 2027-28 deadlines where posted, and the three-way comparison explains what changes between the three applications.	School by school. Some deadlines fall in the September before the school year: one school's online application closes September 18, 2026 for pre-K and kindergarten and December 2, 2026 for grades 1 to 12. A deadline printed without a year has to be asked about.	Ask admissions about space in the exact grade for the current year; a future-year application date does not answer that question. Deposits and their refund terms are in each school's own contract.
The state education savings account	Money toward private school tuition and other approved education expenses, decided by the state: the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program. Its families page says the parent must be a Texas resident and the child eligible to attend a Texas public school, and that a child leaves the program on moving out of Texas. In 2026-27 residency was checked with a Texas driver license or state ID, or else a utility bill, lease, mortgage statement or voter registration certificate. Our TEFA guide has the rules and the tiers.	The first cycle's window ran February 4 to March 31, 2026 and is closed. On September 9, 2026 the state had published no 2027-28 window and offered a 2027-28 interest list. The 2026-27 award for an approved private school was $10,474 per child; the amount is set each year, and the calculator shows what is left of a school's tuition after it.	Nothing until the state opens a window. A private school takes part only if it holds an accreditation the state recognizes, and an award is not money until the state confirms it, so write the tuition with and without it.

One application does not reach across systems. An HISD School Choice application covers HISD schools only; a charter network's application covers that network; a private school's covers that school. A family that wants three kinds of school on its list files three kinds of application, and the dates in the table are the ones that decide whether that is still possible.

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What the month you arrive still allows

The same calendar, read from the other direction. Find the row for the month you expect to have a Houston address, and it says which doors are open for the 2027-28 school year. Every date comes from the district, state, network or school page recorded on the linked pages, read September 8 and 9, 2026, and those pages carry the full rule and any later change.

If you arrive	What is open, and what to do in that window
Before December 8, 2026	HISD Phase 1 has not opened, but the private and charter calendars have. One school's pre-K and kindergarten deadline fell on September 18, 2026 and its grades 1 to 12 deadline is December 2, 2026, so a private application can already be late or nearly due. The charter windows are opening: IDEA's opened September 1, 2026, YES Prep's opens October 1, 2026, and Harmony's standing window should open November 1, 2026. Run the addresses you are weighing through the locator and School Navigator, tour, and join the state program's 2027-28 interest list if private school is on the list.
December 8, 2026 to February 12, 2027	HISD Phase 1 is open. Apply before February 12, 2027 even from out of state; an out-of-district application is processed after applications from district residents. HISD pre-K Phase 1 opens January 19, 2027 and runs to April 15, 2027. Two posted charter deadlines fall inside this window, Harmony's February 10, 2027 and YES Prep's February 12 or 13, 2027; IDEA's February 19, 2027 falls in the next row. The one private school's December 2, 2026 deadline for grades 1 to 12 falls inside the window's first days and has passed for a family arriving later in it.
February 13 to March 16, 2027	HISD Phase 1 is closed and the lottery has not reported. IDEA's deadline is February 19, 2027 and the posted charter lotteries run February 20 and 22, 2027. HISD pre-K Phase 1 is open until April 15, 2027. For a private school, ask admissions whether the grade is still open. If the state's 2027-28 program window has been announced by then, it is the window to watch; none was published on September 9, 2026, and the first cycle's closed on March 31, 2026, which is a reason to hold a Texas lease or license and the documents by winter, and not a prediction of the next dates.
March 17, 2027 to the week before school opens	HISD lottery notifications go out March 17, 2027 and Phase 2 opens the same day, first come first served on remaining seats, with a Phase 2 application joining the end of any waitlist. The hardship transfer route opens after notification day for kindergarten through grade 12, does not reach a Separate and Unique School or an application-only campus, and needs space at the requested school; two of its ten markers, before or after school care near the requested school and a parent's work location within 2 miles of it or on the route to work, are the two that describe a relocating family's situation, and a hardship code earns no bus. Pre-K notifications and Phase 2 come on May 4, 2027. Each charter network's own page says what it does after its lottery; ask about the exact grade.
After school opens in August 2027	The zoned school enrolls a resident child on any school day, with a hub school if the elementary grade is capped. HISD Phase 2 closes for current and returning students one week before school opens and retires their waitlists, but the dates page says it remains open to accommodate students new to the district. Charter and private schools: ask about space in the grade. The state program: nothing until a window opens.

What to have in hand on day one

TEA's enrollment page says a district generally asks a family to show residency, establish the child's identity and submit immunization records or a valid exemption, and that it evaluates the records of a child arriving from an out-of-state, private or home school to place the child in a grade. HISD's campus enrollment pages, read September 9, 2026 on one elementary school's new-parents page, list what the district's online enrollment asks a family to upload, and say the documents proving identity, age, residence and records are due within 30 days of enrollment, or 90 days if the child was born outside the United States. Pack these before the move:

The parent's photo identification.
The child's birth certificate, or other proof of age and identity, in the legal name the district will record.
Proof of the Houston address: a lease agreement or a current utility bill. A family staying with relatives or friends inside HISD completes an affidavit of residence at the zoned school, with a letter from the official resident and that resident's recent utility bill or lease.
The child's current immunization record, signed by a doctor. The state health department says an acceptable record shows the month, day and year of each dose.
A copy of the child's records from the last school. TEA says a district may use transcripts, curriculum or assessments to place a child arriving from another state.

The immunization record is the one that stops a first day. The state's health department publishes the rules for school entry: the 2026-27 K-12 requirements say all immunizations must be completed by the first date of attendance, and provisional enrollment for up to 30 days exists for a student transferring from one Texas school to another, a military dependent or foster child waiting on records, a homeless student, or a student who has had at least one dose of each required vaccine and is on schedule for the rest. A child arriving from another state who is not a military dependent, in foster care or homeless, and has no record showing at least one dose of each required vaccine, fits none of those, so the department's answer is that the first doses have to be obtained before the child can be admitted provisionally, and the rest of each series then has to stay on schedule. Bring the record; if it is incomplete, get the first dose of each required vaccine before the move and bring the record of it; or file a valid exemption.

Age runs on September 1. TEA's parental rights handbook, published August 2026, says a child has the right to attend public school in the district where the family lives if the child is between 5 and 21 on September 1 of that school year, and that children between 6 and 19 are required to attend. A child under five on September 1 enters kindergarten only where state law's conditions are met and the district has adopted a policy allowing it, which TEA's enrollment page describes as limited circumstances. A family moving from a state with a later cutoff should check the birthday against September 1 before assuming the grade.

Before you sign the lease: four things to settle from a distance

These are the rows of our two-school fit checklist that a family cannot fill from a listing. Settle them for the zoned school of every address on the shortlist, then for any school you would apply to from that address.

The school day and the afternoon. Start time, dismissal time, and who runs aftercare and until when. Ask the provider about a place for your grade, registration, cost, closure days and the final pickup time. Write the gap between dismissal and the pickup you can actually make, including days aftercare is closed.
The trip, at the hours it happens. For a school of choice, whether a bus exists for the address and grade under the 2026-27 rule above, where the stop is, and the complete home-school-work trip at drop-off and work-school-home trip at pickup. Include the queue and any trip to a bus stop; try the journey at those times if possible, and label a map estimate as an estimate. Under that rule a pre-K child is not bused unless an IEP or Section 504 plan provides it. Our HISD magnet list prints the transport rule for twenty campuses.
The cost with and without the award. A public or charter school charges no tuition, so its row is fees and aftercare. For a private school, tuition for the grade and year, fees, the deposit and its refund terms, and whether the school takes part in the state program; the award is not money until the state confirms it.
The entry rule and the date, for each school. Whether the child can be admitted at all this cycle, the requirement if there is one, and the window and notification date with its year, so you can see which school will ask you to commit before another has answered.

Compare two exact addresses before committing

Give each address a column on your comparison sheet. Record the full street address and unit, district, assigned campus for your child's grade and target year, then the four checks above. Ask the district or campus to confirm the assignment and enrollment path, including a hub school if the elementary grade is capped after school starts. Save who answered and when. For a school requiring an application, confirm that the grade accepts new students and whether a place is actually offered.

TEA's locator FAQ, rechecked September 10, 2026, says its district boundaries are approximate and unsuitable for commercial transactions; the district supplies campus assignments. A listing's school label or a district's reputation cannot settle the exact campus, available grade or afternoon arrangement. Mark each unknown, its contact and the answer needed before you sign.

One more question belongs to a relocating family alone: whether the zoned school for the address you are about to sign for is the one you would choose if you had a choice. If it is, the address settles the school and the rest of this page is a set of options. If it is not, the calendar above says which options are still open on your arrival date, and the lease can wait for that answer.

What this page is not

It is not a directory of the districts around Houston, and it does not tell you which district or which school to choose; the locator and the district's own tool answer the first question for an address, and the choice is yours. It is not a statement of your child's chance at any school with a lottery; no district or network publishes the counts that would support one, and this page estimates none. It is not legal advice on residency, custody or immunization exemptions. The dates and rules here can change after the day they were read, so before acting on a date or a figure, open the linked page and check it, and if something has moved, send us the link and we will correct it and date the change.

How this page works

The rules come from pages read on September 9, 2026: the Texas Education Agency's enrollment, locator, finding-a-school and admission-guidance pages and its parental rights handbook; HISD's types-of-schools, enrollment, School Choice dates, eligibility, transportation and additional enrollment options pages and one campus's enrollment page; the state health department's immunization pages; and the state education savings account program's pages. Where a rule is held in full on another page of this site, that page is linked and only the sentence this page needs is restated. Research is AI-assisted and a person reviews it before publication. No school pays us. Our method explains the checks in full.

The $195 School Decision Report does this work for the areas your family is actually weighing: each address as an option with its zoned school, the drive and the aftercare, the schools you could apply to from it with their entry rules and dates, and the cost with and without an award, delivered with a discussion guide and an action kit dated to the deadlines. Tell us which areas you are considering and whether the neighborhood is decided. See if this report fits your family.

Audio details

AI-generated narration, listened to in full and approved by a person. Full rules and sources are in this guide.

Audio transcript

Alex & Jordan · 6 min 38 sec

Alex: Hi, I'm Alex. Welcome to School, Clearly.

Jordan: And I'm Jordan. We're your hosts, and today is for the family moving to Houston with kids of school age, from a city that had one school district and one calendar. Houston has more than one of each, and the question is how they fit together.

Alex: So where does a family start? With the schools, or with the neighborhood?

Jordan: With the address, because the address does two things at once. The Texas Education Agency says a child enrolls in the public school district where the family lives, and that each district draws its own attendance zones. So the lease picks the district, and the district picks the attendance-zone school. Inside the Houston Independent School District, that school takes a resident child on any school day, with no application and no lottery.

Alex: And how do you look that up from another state?

Jordan: Two tools, two levels. The state has a School District Locator, a map of every district boundary. Then, if the address is inside the Houston Independent School District, the district's own School Navigator returns the zoned elementary, middle and high school for that address. Do both before you sign anything, because a Houston address is not always inside that district, and if it lands in another one, that district's rules apply.

Alex: Once you know the attendance-zone school, what else is there?

Jordan: Five more routes, and each one runs on its own calendar. The district's own School Choice application, for a magnet or any school other than the attendance-zone school. The district's pre-K application, on a separate calendar. Each charter network's own application and lottery. Each private school's own admissions. And the state's education savings account program, which is money, and has a window of its own.

Alex: Let's start with School Choice, the district's application. When is it?

Jordan: For the twenty twenty-seven to twenty-eight school year, phase one runs December eighth, twenty twenty-six to February twelfth, twenty twenty-seven, and the lottery reports on March seventeenth, twenty twenty-seven. And here's the part that matters for a family that hasn't moved yet. The district's eligibility page says phase one applications from residents inside the district are processed before out-of-district applications. So you can apply from out of state. Your application is just processed after the residents' applications.

Alex: And if the family arrives after February?

Jordan: Then phase two. It opens on lottery day, March seventeenth, first come first served on whatever seats are left, and an application joins the end of any waitlist left from phase one. For a current or returning district student it closes a week before school opens. But the district's own calendar page says phase two remains open to accommodate families moving into the area. A family arriving in July or even after school starts can still file one.

Alex: What about the charters?

Jordan: Each network runs its own application and draws at random when a campus is full. Their windows mostly close in February too. On September eighth, twenty twenty-six, two of the five networks in our list had posted a date for the coming year, one had a standing window, and two had posted nothing. After a lottery, each network's own page says whether it still takes applications, and the honest answer for a family arriving in the summer is to ask the network about the exact grade.

Alex: And private schools?

Jordan: School by school, grade by grade. Some deadlines fall in the September before the school year. One school's pre-K and kindergarten deadline falls in mid-September, twenty twenty-six, on the eighteenth. For a mid-year arrival you ask admissions about space in the grade you need, because a future-year deadline doesn't answer that.

Alex: You said the savings account program is money. How does moving affect it?

Jordan: The program requires the parent to be a Texas resident. Last cycle, residency was checked with a Texas driver's license or state I D, or else a utility bill, lease, mortgage statement or voter registration certificate. The first window ran February fourth to March thirty-first, twenty twenty-six, and it's closed. On September ninth, twenty twenty-six, the state had published no window for the coming year, only an interest list. So the practical advice is to have both a Texas address and those documents by winter. That's preparation, and it isn't a prediction of the dates.

Alex: So the month you arrive really decides which doors are open.

Jordan: It does, and our article has a table that reads the year that way. Arrive before December and the district's phase one is still ahead of you, though some private deadlines have already passed. Arrive in the phase one window and you apply from out of state. Arrive after March seventeenth and it's phase two, first come first served, plus a hardship transfer route that doesn't reach the application-only magnet campuses, with ten markers, two of which describe the situation of a relocating family: after-school care near the school you want, or a parent's workplace within two miles of it or along the route to work. Arrive after school opens and the attendance-zone school still enrolls you on any school day.

Alex: Let's talk about that first day. What do you actually need to have with you?

Jordan: Five things, and our article has the list. The parent's photo I D. The child's birth certificate. Proof of the Houston address, a lease or a current utility bill. The child's current immunization record, signed by a doctor. And a copy of the child's records from the last school. The district's campus pages say the identity, age, residence and records documents are due within thirty days of enrolling, or ninety if the child was born outside the United States.

Alex: Why do you keep coming back to the immunization record?

Jordan: Because it's the one that can stop a first day. Texas requires the shots to be complete by the first day the child attends. There's a thirty-day provisional enrollment, but it's for a child transferring from one Texas school to another, a military dependent or foster child waiting on records, a homeless student, or a child who's had at least one dose of everything and is on schedule.

Jordan: A child arriving from another state who isn't a military dependent, in foster care or homeless, and has no record of at least one dose of everything, fits none of those. So bring the record, and if it's incomplete, get the first dose of each required vaccine before the move and bring the record of that.

Alex: And what about ages, since some states cut off kindergarten in December?

Jordan: Texas runs on September first. The state's parental rights handbook, published August twenty twenty-six, says a child has the right to attend public school in the home district from age five to twenty-one as of September first, and school is required from six to nineteen. A child under five on September first enters kindergarten only in limited circumstances where the district has a policy for it. So check the child's date of birth against September first before you assume the grade.

Alex: Last thing. What should a family settle before they sign a lease?

Jordan: Four rows of our two-school checklist, for the attendance-zone school of every address on the shortlist. The school day and who covers the afternoon. The trip at drop-off and at pickup, and whether a bus exists at all, which for a school of choice under the twenty twenty-six to twenty-seven rule means at least two miles from the school with a qualifying code, a stop that may be three miles away, and no bus for pre-K unless an I E P or five-oh-four plan provides one.

Jordan: The cost, with and without an award. And the entry rule and the date for each school you would apply to from that address. Then one question only a relocating family gets to ask: is the attendance-zone school for this address the one you would choose anyway? If yes, the lease picks the school too. If no, the calendar tells you what's still open on the day you arrive.

Alex: Thanks, Jordan. You'll find the six-route table, the arrival calendar and the day-one list in our moving to Houston guide at school clearly dot com.

Jordan: We provide AI-assisted research and decision support. No school pays us for inclusion, referrals, or advertising. We don't guarantee admission, a seat, or any particular outcome. Your family owns the final decision.

Alex: I'm Alex. This is AI-generated narration, and thanks for listening with us.

Jordan: And I'm Jordan. Run the address through the locator before you sign. The lease picks the district, and the district picks the school.

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