School districts in North Dakota
In North Dakota the federal boundary file names an elementary district and no secondary district at all for part of 36 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. Fargo Public School District 1 is the largest district in the state at 46,336 homes; the smallest arrangements are the ones a single-name lookup cannot describe. Its most divided ZIP Code area, 58413, is split between 6 districts for elementary grades alone. In 35 of them the answer for grade school is not the answer for high school.
How many school districts are in North Dakota?
167: the Census boundary file draws 167 school districts in North Dakota that reach at least one ZIP Code area with homes, 147 unified, 20 elementary and 0 secondary. A ZIP Code here can sit in more than one of them, which is why a school district lookup by ZIP Code for North Dakota lists them all: find your school district by ZIP code.
Towns that run grade school and buy the rest
The state sits well above the national rate: 75% of its ZIP Code areas cross a district line against 53% across the country. With 167 districts over 386 populated ZIP Code areas, every extra district is another line to cross.
- ZIP Code areas with a district386
- Served by more than one district290 (75%)
- Grade school and high school differ35 (9.1%)
- No high school district named36
- Unified districts147
- Elementary districts20
- Secondary districts0
- Homes in no district at all0
District pages for North Dakota, largest first
Ranked by the homes inside their boundaries: Bismarck Public School District 1 leads at 41,020, then West Fargo Public School District 6 at 33,979 and Grand Forks Public School District 1 at 28,846. Only districts with a page here are listed; 161 more in the state have none.
- Bismarck Public School District 141,020 homes · 6 ZIP areas
- West Fargo Public School District 633,979 homes · 9 ZIP areas
- Grand Forks Public School District 128,846 homes · 9 ZIP areas
- Dickinson Public School District 113,434 homes · 5 ZIP areas
- Hazen Public School District 31,601 homes · 4 ZIP areas
- Garrison Public School District 511,600 homes · 6 ZIP areas
The most divided ZIP Code area in North Dakota
ZIP Code area 58413 holds 759 homes and 6 districts take a real share of them for the early grades, but Ashley Public School District 9 holds 92% on its own at that level. This is the shape that makes a single-name lookup look right: it names Ashley Public School District 9 and describes most of the homes here, and silently not the rest.
Each percentage here is a share of the 759 homes counted in ZIP Code 58413, 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 759 homes counted in ZIP Code 58413, so one cell is 22 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.
- Ashley Public School District 9699 of 759 homes92%
- Wishek Public School District 1917 of 759 homes2.2%
- Zeeland Public School District 417 of 759 homes2.2%
- Eureka School District 44-113 of 759 homes1.7%
- Kulm Public School District 78 of 759 homes1.1%
- Ellendale Public School District 405 of 759 homes0.7%
For grade school, an answer of one district name would be wrong for 60 of the 759 here.
How much of North Dakota a single district name misses
Across the 386 ZIP Code areas in North Dakota with homes in them, an answer of one district name misses 30,311 of the 370,158 homes they hold — 8.2% of the state. In 73 of those areas the largest district for the early grades holds every home counted; in the other 313 it leaves some out. That is a different count from the 290 areas served by more than one district: it also counts districts under half a percent of the homes and homes in no district, and it does not count a high school district that differs.
In ZIP Code 58104 · Fargo, North Dakota the largest district for grade school is Fargo Public School District 1, and naming it alone misses 9,451 of the 21,835 homes counted there. For grade school the rest is 9,451 homes with West Fargo Public School District 6.
In ZIP Code 58103 · Fargo, North Dakota the largest district for grade school is Fargo Public School District 1, and naming it alone misses 6,314 of the 24,551 homes counted there. For grade school the rest is 6,314 homes with West Fargo Public School District 6.
ZIP Code 58701 · Minot, North Dakota names 5 districts. Minot Public School District 1 is the largest of them for grade school, and an answer of its name alone misses 1,905 of the 15,815 homes there; for grade school the rest is 1,858 homes with Nedrose Public School District 4, South Prairie Public School District 70, United Public School District 7 and one more district; 47 homes in districts too small to name here.
Where a ZIP Code here names more than one district
Of the 386 ZIP Code areas in North Dakota that the federal file names a district for, 290 name more than one school district. These are the 12 with the most, starting at 6 districts in one postal area: Ashley, Englevale and Shell Valley. 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 58413 · Ashley, North Dakota6 districts · 759 homes
- ZIP Code 58033 · Englevale, North Dakota5 districts · 200 homes · 132 with no high school district
- ZIP Code 58316 · Shell Valley, North Dakota5 districts · 1,848 homes
- ZIP Code 58330 · Edmore, North Dakota5 districts · 194 homes
- ZIP Code 58357 · Oberon, North Dakota5 districts · 156 homes · 81 with no high school district
- ZIP Code 58384 · Willow City, North Dakota5 districts · 308 homes
- ZIP Code 58454 · Jud, North Dakota5 districts · 180 homes
- ZIP Code 58481 · Spiritwood, North Dakota5 districts · 126 homes
- ZIP Code 58558 · Menoken, North Dakota5 districts · 381 homes · 219 with no high school district
- ZIP Code 58701 · Minot, North Dakota5 districts · 15,815 homes
- ZIP Code 58030 · Fairmount, North Dakota4 districts · 313 homes
- ZIP Code 58031 · Alice, North Dakota4 districts · 184 homes
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: 290 of the 386 ZIP Code areas in North Dakota 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.