School districts are a form of special-purpose district which serves to operate the local public primary and secondary schools.
In the United States, public schools are operated by school districts, which are independent special-purpose governments, or dependent school systems, which are under the control of state and local government. A school district is a legally separate body corporate and politic. School districts are local governments with powers similar to that of a town or a county covering taxation and eminent domain, except in Virginia, whose school divisions have no taxing authority and must depend on another local government (county, city, or town) for funding. Its governing body, which is typically elected by direct popular vote but may be appointed by other governmental officials, is called a school board, board of trustees, board of education, school committee, or the like. This body designates a superintendent, usually an experienced public school administrator, to function as the district’s chief executive for carrying out day-to-day decisions and policy implementations. The school board may also apply a quasi-judicial function in serious employee or student discipline matters.
Not all school systems constitute school districts as distinct bodies corporate. A few states have no school systems independent of county or municipal governments. One prominent example is Maryland, where all school systems are governed at the county or, in the case of Baltimore City, the county-equivalent level. Other states, such as New York, have both independent school districts and school systems that are subordinate to cities. The Hawaii State Department of Education functions as a single state-wide school district. This is unique among the states, but the Puerto Rico Department of Education runs all schools in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, thus also functioning as a single school district.
In the 2002 Census of Governments, the United States Census Bureau enumerated the following numbers of school systems in the United States:
13,506 school district governments
178 state-dependent school systems
1,330 local-dependent school systems
1,196 education service agencies (agencies providing support services to public school systems)