Data and Code for: School Attendance Boundaries and the Segregation of Schools in the US

School segregation is determined by residential sorting, but also by policy choices such as the drawing of attendance boundaries and school siting. This paper develops a new approach to understanding the importance of each of these factors, by combining detailed census data with attendance boundary maps for nearly 1,600 school districts. I find that residential segregation explains more than 100 percent of school segregation. On average, attendance boundaries create 5 percent more integration than a distance-minimizing baseline. School siting plays almost no role. Some local governments act to mitigate school segregation, although their impact is small compared to residential choice.