Each morning Vineyard elementary school students gather at bus stops in their towns and head off to school.

But for 119 students in the school choice program, their school is not in their town.

Inter-district school choice is a statewide program established in 1991 that allows children to attend a public school in a district that is not the same as where they reside. It is distinct from the school choice programs of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which include non-public school options.

There are four elementary districts on the Island: Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, Tisbury, and Up-Island, which includes both the Chilmark School and the West Tisbury School. In theory, according to school choice, Vineyard students could elect to attend a public school in Falmouth and vice versa, although there are no students who currently do this.

Up-Island had a net gain of $183,703. — Infographic by Graham Smith

But where students ultimately end up affects both town and school resources.

On the Vineyard, schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss said, most families opt for school choice as a matter of convenience. Parents may work in a different town than the one they live in, for example. And if a family moves to another town, they may want their child to stay in the same school as their friends. “A school where their sibling is, a school that’s easy to get to, a school where their grandparents live across the street, so there’s child care,” Chilmark School principal Susan Stevens said. “You could probably come up with a lot of reasons.” Vineyard elementary schools are also known for each having their own distinctive school culture; the Tisbury School has a more traditional feel, for example. One program might be better suited for a given student, Mr. Weiss said.

“The differences aren’t huge, but they are different,” he said. Differences in special education programs also play a role.

To apply for school choice, parents write a letter to the school’s principal requesting a spot in the class. They are not required to specify a reason, although many do. Space is determined on a per-grade basis, and is contingent on the current state of enrollment. Not all classes have space every year. The principals meet as a group once the school year is over to sort through the letters and make decisions.

“Sometimes people apply for more than one school,” Mrs. Stevens said. “If somebody really wanted to be down-Island, they might apply to the three schools, to be at either one of those place rather than up-Island. We might work together to try to make that happen.”

Students with siblings at a requested school will have preference over others. At the Chilmark School, a school choice applicant would be given preference if the student had attended the Chilmark Preschool.

“That was one of the reasons for starting the preschool, was to increase the population of the school,” Mrs. Stevens said. The initiative is working, she said.

Parents are responsible for transporting their children to and from their school, unless they are going to an up-Island building. As an initiative of the up-Island school committee, the district arranges for group bus pickup at one prearranged spot in each down-Island town.

The up-Island district also has its own intra-district school choice, in that students from any of the three towns can elect to attend either Chilmark or West Tisbury.

“Money doesn’t exchange hands between the entities because they’re all on the same budget,” school business administrator Amy Tierney explained.

Beyond that, following the money trail becomes somewhat complicated.

When a child becomes a school choice student, the district the student moves to receives tuition from the one they are leaving. The tuition money comes from Chapter 70, state aid that school districts receive from the governor’s budget. Chapter 70 funding is partially dependent on enrollment numbers, meaning school choice affects how much of the money stays within a given district. Base numbers for Chapter 70 aid by school district on the Vineyard in the current fiscal year are as follows: up-Island district, $812,797; Oak Bluffs, $650,652; Edgartown, $535,881; and Tisbury, $474,255. Under school choice, tuition is deducted from quarterly Chapter 70 distribution and paid directly to the receiving school districts, so the base number goes up or down depending on how many students the district gains or loses.

School choice tuition is $5,000 per student, except for special education students. For children who receive special education services, the tuition is $5,000 plus any associated expenses, such as for an assistant. (Regional special education programs, such as the Bridge program hosted at the Edgartown School, are not affected by school choice funds.)

Records show that in this year the up-Island school district received the most school choice students, with a total of 50 kids entering the district. A total of 19 students came to Chilmark, and 31 came to West Tisbury from other districts. As a result, the up-Island district received $286,634 in tuition. In the up-Island region, 17 students left, meaning $102,931 of their Chapter 70 money went to other districts.

Oak Bluffs received 34 students under school choice, the most of any individual school, but the school also had 31 students go to other schools, resulting in just a slight gain of $22,054 in Chapter 70 money.

Edgartown and Tisbury sent more students out of district than they had incoming, so those schools ultimately saw decreases in total Chapter 70 funds. In Edgartown, 13 students entered under school choice while 34 left to attend school in other districts, resulting in a loss of $100,898 in Chapter 70 money. In Tisbury, 22 students entered while 37 left to attend school in other districts, for a loss of $104,859 in Chapter 70 money.

The numbers are all as of December 2014.

The Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School operates under a different funding formula and different state rules, Mrs. Tierney said.

Mr. Weiss said school choice used to be a larger program, because there was more excess capacity in the classrooms. As student populations at each school have increased, there are fewer options for out-of-district students. Once a student applies and is accepted to school choice, they must stay at the school for at least a full year.

“You can’t keep bouncing around,” the superintendent said.