Top 10 Largest US School Districts by Enrollment (NCES)
PlainSchools ranks US public school districts by total student enrollment from the NCES Common Core of Data. Updated with each NCES data release; every figure links to the source district.
Research period:
Research question
Among the 17,873 US public school districts in the NCES Common Core of Data, which carry the largest enrollment, and how do the top-ten urban districts compare to the median district size?
Methodology
This ranking lists the total student enrollment reported by U.S. public school districts in the NCES Common Core of Data, the federal census of public schools and districts. The figures are recomputed automatically each time NCES publishes a new release, so the page reflects the most recent data available, and nothing here is hand-entered.
Where NCES suppresses a value (for confidentiality, small sample size, or quality review), that record is left out of the ranking rather than shown as a zero, which would push low-information records ahead of others. Figures appear in the same units NCES publishes, and if NCES later revises a value the change appears here with the next release.
Every district in the table links to its full record, where you can check the underlying numbers against the official NCES source. We publish rankings straight from the data without editorial spin; if you believe a figure is wrong, the contact details in the footer reach us.
See the methodology page for source vintage and full details.
Top 10 Largest US School Districts by Enrollment (NCES)
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, updated with each release
The ranked top 10
The full ranked top 10, with every figure linked to its source record. Figures update with each NCES data release.
| # | District | City | Enrollment | Schools |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Los Angeles Unified | Los Angeles | 427,795 | 785 |
| 2 | Miami-Dade | Miami | 334,090 | 542 |
| 3 | City of Chicago Sd 299 | Chicago | 321,666 | 644 |
| 4 | Clark County School District | Las Vegas | 314,346 | 378 |
| 5 | Broward | Fort Lauderdale | 254,732 | 329 |
| 6 | Hillsborough | Tampa | 224,538 | 309 |
| 7 | Orange | Orlando | 207,561 | 276 |
| 8 | Houston Isd | Houston | 189,934 | 274 |
| 9 | Palm Beach | West Palm Beach | 188,843 | 234 |
| 10 | Gwinnett County | Lawrenceville | 181,814 | 140 |
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES Common Core of Data (CCD), district-level enrollment files. Figures are updated with each NCES data release. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES Common Core of Data (CCD), district-level enrollment files. Figures are updated with each NCES data release.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Los Angeles Unified, with a value of 427,795 on the Enrollment column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes straight from the official NCES data; no number is hand-entered. When NCES publishes a revision, the ranking updates here with the next data release.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (427,795) and the 10th-ranked record (181,814) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated: a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Beyond the visible top-10, the linked entity profiles and the methodology page place this ranking in the context of the full population: how many records qualify in total and where the leaders sit relative to the typical value. Records with missing or zero values on the ranked measure are excluded so the comparison stays like-for-like.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking come from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, specifically the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD), the federal census of US public schools and districts. We publish the figures as NCES reports them and refresh them with each new release, so the page does not carry stale numbers. The methodology page lists the source, the data vintage, and how each figure is derived.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
Top 10 Largest US School Districts: Schools per District (NCES)
Operational footprint of the same top-10 districts: how many physical school facilities each carries
What this analysis cannot tell us
Enrollment counts reflect the most recent NCES Common Core of Data release and do not capture mid-year student mobility. Charter authorizers, virtual schools, and special-purpose districts appear in the data alongside traditional public school districts; their enrollment is included in the ranking but their organizational structure differs from a conventional geographic district. District size correlates with population centers, not with educational outcomes, large districts often face structural challenges (transportation, scheduling, principal turnover) that small districts do not, and small districts face their own challenges (program breadth, per-pupil overhead). This ranking measures organizational scale, not quality.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD) - https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/
Cite this analysis
PlainSchools. (2026). Top 10 Largest US School Districts by Enrollment (NCES). https://plainschools.com/research/top-districts-by-enrollment/