School districts in Maine
In Maine the federal boundary file names an elementary district and no secondary district at all for part of 77 ZIP Code areas. That is an arrangement rather than a hole in the data: the town runs its own grade school and pays tuition for its high school students elsewhere. Portland is the largest district in the state at 35,747 homes; the smallest arrangements are the ones a single-name lookup cannot describe. Its most divided ZIP Code area, 04605, is split between 7 districts for elementary grades alone. In 42 of them the answer for grade school is not the answer for high school. The two districts that share the most ZIP Codes here are Hancock Unorganized Territory and Regional School Unit 24, in 4 of them.
How many school districts are in Maine?
263: the Census boundary file draws 263 school districts in Maine that reach at least one ZIP Code area with homes, 186 unified, 74 elementary and 3 secondary. A ZIP Code here can sit in more than one of them, which is why a school district lookup by ZIP Code for Maine lists them all: find your school district by ZIP code.
Towns that run grade school and buy the rest
The state sits well below the national rate of 53%. Portland alone covers 35,747 homes, and districts that size swallow whole postal areas rather than splitting them. Where a ZIP Code area here does cross a line, it is worth checking precisely because it is unusual: 123 of the 426 do.
- ZIP Code areas with a district426
- Served by more than one district123 (29%)
- Grade school and high school differ42 (9.9%)
- No high school district named77
- Unified districts186
- Elementary districts74
- Secondary districts3
- Homes in no district at all0
District pages for Maine, largest first
Ranked by the homes inside their boundaries: Five Town Community leads at 8,376, then School Administrative District 04 at 3,169 and Aroostook Unorganized Territory at 2,338. Only districts with a page here are listed; 258 more in the state have none.
The most divided ZIP Code area in Maine
ZIP Code area 04605 is the most divided in Maine: 7 districts reach into its 8,390 homes, led for the early grades by Ellsworth and Lamoine. No single name describes this postal code, and no lookup that gives one is telling the whole truth about it.
3,095 of the 8,390 homes here have no high school district named in the federal file.
Each percentage here is a share of the 8,390 homes counted in ZIP Code 04605, not the chance that any one address is in that district. Enrollment follows the street: two houses on opposite sides of the same road can be in different districts, and only the district office can say which.
Every track below is 35 cells long and stands for all 8,390 homes counted in ZIP Code 04605, so one cell is 240 homes, rounded to the nearest whole cell. Cells lit solid are the homes one district holds, and the unlit cells are the homes held by the other districts in the same list.
- Ellsworth Public Schools4,584 of 8,390 homes55%
- Lamoine Public Schools1,067 of 8,390 homes13%
- Trenton1,066 of 8,390 homes13%
- Otis740 of 8,390 homes8.8%
- Regional School Unit 24611 of 8,390 homes7.3%
- Airline Community School District197 of 8,390 homes2.3%
- Hancock Unorganized Territory100 of 8,390 homes1.2%
One further district reaches into this area and holds 25 homes in it, under half a percent of the homes named at this level.
For grade school, an answer of one district name would be wrong for 3,806 of the 8,390 here.
Where the high school answer in Maine is missing from the file
Across the 426 ZIP Code areas in Maine with homes in them, an answer of one district name misses 47,643 of the 738,204 homes they hold. The arithmetic understates it here: in 77 of those areas some homes have no high school district named at all, so the name that is right for the early grades is not wrong later — there is nothing there to be right about.
ZIP Code 04401 · Bangor, Maine names 4 districts. Bangor is the largest of them for grade school, and an answer of its name alone misses 5,494 of the 21,394 homes there; for grade school the rest is 5,494 homes with Hermon, Glenburn and Veazie.
In ZIP Code 04901 · Waterville, Maine the largest district for grade school is Waterville, and naming it alone misses 5,045 of the 12,453 homes counted there. For grade school the rest is 5,045 homes with Winslow and School Administrative District 49.
ZIP Code 04605 · Ellsworth, Maine is the case Maine is known for: 3,095 of its 8,390 homes have no high school district named in the federal file, and Ellsworth leads what is named for grade school. An answer of one name misses 3,806 homes there and the arrangement behind them.
Where a ZIP Code here names more than one district
Of the 426 ZIP Code areas in Maine that the federal file names a district for, 123 name more than one school district. These are the 12 with the most, starting at 7 districts in one postal area: Ellsworth, Old Town and Wellington. Each row opens the full answer for that ZIP Code, with every district named for grade school and for high school and the share of the homes each one holds.
- ZIP Code 04605 · Ellsworth, Maine7 districts · 8,390 homes · 3,095 with no high school district
- ZIP Code 04468 · Old Town, Maine6 districts · 4,477 homes · 218 with no high school district
- ZIP Code 04942 · Wellington, Maine6 districts · 1,079 homes · 639 with no high school district
- ZIP Code 04497 · Reed, Maine5 districts · 372 homes
- ZIP Code 04622 · Cherryfield, Maine5 districts · 1,320 homes · 661 with no high school district
- ZIP Code 04654 · Machias, Maine5 districts · 1,906 homes · 1 with no high school district
- ZIP Code 04401 · Bangor, Maine4 districts · 21,394 homes · 2,875 with no high school district
- ZIP Code 04406 · Abbot, Maine4 districts · 711 homes
- ZIP Code 04463 · Milo, Maine4 districts · 1,844 homes
- ZIP Code 04487 · Lakeville, Maine4 districts · 991 homes
- ZIP Code 04668 · Grand Lake Stream, Maine4 districts · 1,216 homes · 767 with no high school district
- ZIP Code 04694 · Woodland, Maine4 districts · 1,405 homes · 386 with no high school district
What to do next
Ask the district office to confirm your street address: look on its site for a school locator, a find my school tool or an attendance zone map, or call the office.
A ZIP Code is a set of mail delivery routes, not a boundary: 123 of the 426 ZIP Code areas in Maine with a district named for them are served by more than one school district, and the line between two of them runs along streets. Only the district can say which side of that line an address is on.
District websites and phone numbers here come from the NCES Common Core of Data directory, 2024-25 school year, filed under the same district ID as the Census boundary files. Where it lists no usable website, none is printed rather than guessed.
If a house purchase depends on the answer, ask the district itself for written confirmation of that exact address. A listing is not a district record, and neither is this page.
Where these numbers come from
The homes were counted in the 2020 Census and the district lines are the 2026 boundary file, so a fast-growing area may have changed since; ZIP Codes here are the Census Bureau's ZIP Code Tabulation Areas; a share is a share of homes, not the chance that one address is in a district; and a district is not a school attendance zone. Every source, file and caveat is on the method page.