Within K-12 education, there are 130,930 public schools, with 87,498 of the schools being elementary schools, 26,727 middle schools, 15,804 high schools, and 901 other types of schools.

In the USA, the school system is not graded according to performance levels (as in Germany, for example), but all young people attend a uniform type of school. The performance levels of individual students are determined in high school by the choice and completion of subjects and courses of different levels of difficulty and by corresponding grades.

The culture and level of resources of schools varies greatly depending on the type of school and the location, including city, suburban, town, or rural schools. Further, socioeconomic conditions within the communities that schools are located play a significant role in the experience of school youth. The four largest school districts in the United States are New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami-Dade, which are all city or urban school districts. As of the 2018-2019 school year, the national graduation rate from high school is 89 %. However, this rate can vary greatly between schools, districts, and states. Additionally, the average student to teacher ratio in a class is sixteen students assigned to one teacher, but this can also vary depending on the challenges faced by the school. Districts with fewer resources tend to have schools with much larger class sizes. In the US South, it is common to see classrooms with twenty-two to twenty-five students per class. Schools and districts with fewer resources tend to have much larger class sizes, making it more difficult to receive the type of instruction and attention from teachers needed to thrive.

Compulsory education laws require youth to attend a public or state-accredited private school for a certain amount of years depending on the state. There are certain exceptions wherein a student does not have to be in an actual school, such as a student being homeschooled. Each state also has a unique mandate for when children must begin school and how old they must be before dropping out. Typically, youth must start school by the age of six and remain enrolled until they are at least sixteen. These laws were put in place not only to improve literacy rates but also to discourage the widespread abuse of child labor practices rampant during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While there are different mechanisms by which youth can persist through the education system, with various options to leave upon reaching the age of sixteen, society places a premium on acquiring a high school diploma – achieved by completing the twelfth grade and graduating. Many states offer work release permits that allow students to work limited hours outside of the school during normal school hours – via co-ops, internships, and apprenticeships, but the expectation to achieve a high school diploma is always there.

In general, the education system in the United States is very decentralized with every state and district within each state having different systems and standards. A typical course load for a US high school student over their four years consists of four years of math and English, three years of science and history, and two years of a foreign language or physical education. There is also an option of pursuing computer or health studies.

Because each state has a different set of graduation and, therefore, curriculum standards, it is not possible to particularly say what an exact protocol would be throughout the United States. In general, the national standard is that students at a bare minimum will learn proficiencies in the areas of mathematical reasoning, language arts, social studies, and science. These subject areas are also reflected and covered on the General Equivalency Degree (GED), the alternative to the high school diploma. Many states require the completion of at least two semesters worth of language study, but in general this tendency is reflective of an admission requirement of post-baccalaureate institutions and, increasingly, schools are no longer requiring students to learn a language in high school. For those students who do undertake a language, the Romanic languages tend to be the most studied with nearly 70 % of all foreign language classes being comprised of Spanish or French. Chinese, German, and Latin are the only other world languages that account for more than 5 % of the courses offered to secondary school students. German as a second language has trended in a negative direction since the year 2000.