San Francisco school board members are scheduled to vote Tuesday on a new system for assigning students to elementary schools, a change that could reshape how families seek placements beginning in fall 2028. Both plans under consideration guarantee students a neighborhood school. They differ in how many other schools families may apply to and how the system handles applications submitted after the deadline: one offers families more choice, while the other prioritizes keeping children closer to home. The vote would replace the district’s current citywide lottery. Under that system, families rank as many schools as they want, and an algorithm assigns available seats using priority rules, or tiebreakers. One significant priority, known as CTIP1, gives students from areas with historically low test scores preference at any school they list, even ahead of families who live nearby. There is no guarantee that a student will receive a listed school. In recent years, 96% of applicants in the main assignment round received a school on their list, and 67% received their first choice, according to an analysis of district applications by Stanford researchers. The district has sought to replace the lottery since 2018, when the school board voted to scrap it because it had not reduced socioeconomic segregation as intended. The district has repeatedly missed deadlines for a new system. A zone-based approach approved by the board in 2020 was never implemented. The decision will affect families with children entering transitional kindergarten or kindergarten in fall 2028 or later. The system selected by the board will set the range of schools those families can apply to and the priorities used to assign seats.