Largest school districts in the United States by enrollment

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Last updated May 13, 2024

During the 2021-2022 school year, there were 13,253 public school districts. These school districts enrolled 46,512,056 students across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

A total of 14,021,186 students (30.15%) attended schools within the nation's 200 largest school districts by enrollment. Ballotpedia's coverage scope includes these 200 districts as well as all school districts in America's 100 largest cities by population. However, only these 200 districts are included on this page.

As of the 2021-2022 school year, the largest school district was the New York City Department of Education with 847,030 students. The smallest school district in the top 200 was Norfolk Public Schools in Virginia with 27,478 students.

See also: List of school districts in the United States

National map

Hover over the map below to see the total number of top 200 school districts in each state: