School districts in Tennessee
52% of the 631 populated ZIP Code areas in Tennessee are served by more than one school district — 331 of them, which puts the state 23rd among the fifty-two. It is organized into 126 unified districts, 15 elementary districts and 15 secondary districts, the largest being Metropolitan Nashville Public at 327,984 homes. Its most divided ZIP Code area, 38006, is split between 7 districts for elementary grades alone. In 27 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 Giles County and Lawrence County, in 6 of them.
How many school districts are in Tennessee?
156: the Census boundary file draws 156 school districts in Tennessee that reach at least one ZIP Code area with homes, 126 unified, 15 elementary and 15 secondary. A ZIP Code here can sit in more than one of them, which is why a school district lookup by ZIP Code for Tennessee lists them all: find your school district by ZIP code.
How often a ZIP Code here crosses a district line
Tennessee keeps 15 separate secondary districts — districts that pick students up partway through and run to the end of high school, over several elementary districts at once. Where one of those sits, an address has two district names and neither is wrong.
- ZIP Code areas with a district631
- Served by more than one district331 (52%)
- Grade school and high school differ27 (4.3%)
- No high school district named0
- Unified districts126
- Elementary districts15
- Secondary districts15
- Homes in no district at all3
District pages for Tennessee, largest first
Ranked by the homes inside their boundaries: Metropolitan Nashville Public leads at 327,984, then Shelby County at 326,480 and Murfreesboro City at 63,194. Only districts with a page here are listed; 148 more in the state have none.
- Metropolitan Nashville Public School District327,984 homes · 37 ZIP areas
- Shelby County School District326,480 homes · 40 ZIP areas
- Murfreesboro City School District63,194 homes · 6 ZIP areas
- Kingsport City School District27,230 homes · 7 ZIP areas
- Bradley County School District24,035 homes · 8 ZIP areas
- Roane County School District23,805 homes · 10 ZIP areas
- Cleveland City School District20,746 homes · 4 ZIP areas
- Rhea County School District11,617 homes · 6 ZIP areas
The most divided ZIP Code area in Tennessee
ZIP Code area 38006 holds 2,193 homes and 7 districts take a real share of them for the early grades, but Bells City holds 70% on its own at that level. This is the shape that makes a single-name lookup look right: it names Bells City and describes most of the homes here, and silently not the rest.
Each percentage here is a share of the 2,193 homes counted in ZIP Code 38006, 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 2,193 homes counted in ZIP Code 38006, so one cell is 63 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.
- Bells City School District1,537 of 2,193 homes70%
- Haywood County School District364 of 2,193 homes17%
- Crockett County School District112 of 2,193 homes5.1%
- Alamo City School District90 of 2,193 homes4.1%
- Jackson-Madison County School System90 of 2,193 homes4.1%
For grade school, an answer of one district name would be wrong for 656 of the 2,193 here.
How much of Tennessee a single district name misses
Across the 631 ZIP Code areas in Tennessee with homes in them, an answer of one district name misses 326,669 of the 3,029,741 homes they hold — 11% of the state. In 277 of those areas the largest district for the early grades holds every home counted; in the other 354 it leaves some out. That is a different count from the 331 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 37064 · Franklin, Tennessee the largest district for grade school is Williamson County School District, and naming it alone misses 11,687 of the 24,672 homes counted there. For grade school the rest is 11,652 homes with Franklin Special and 35 homes in a district too small to name here.
ZIP Code 38002 · Lakeland, Tennessee names 6 districts. Lakeland School System is the largest of them for grade school, and an answer of its name alone misses 10,395 of the 15,419 homes there; for grade school the rest is 10,395 homes with Arlington Community, Bartlett City, Shelby County and 2 more districts.
In ZIP Code 37129 · Murfreesboro, Tennessee the largest district for grade school is Murfreesboro City, and naming it alone misses 9,291 of the 23,914 homes counted there. For grade school the rest is 9,290 homes with Rutherford County School District and 1 home in a district too small to name here.
Where a ZIP Code here names more than one district
Of the 631 ZIP Code areas in Tennessee that the federal file names a district for, 331 name more than one school district. These are the 12 with the most, starting at 7 districts in one postal area: Bells, Humboldt and Philadelphia. 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 38006 · Bells, Tennessee7 districts · 2,193 homes · two bands, two answers
- ZIP Code 38343 · Humboldt, Tennessee7 districts · 7,232 homes · two bands, two answers
- ZIP Code 37846 · Philadelphia, Tennessee6 districts · 2,080 homes · two bands, two answers
- ZIP Code 38002 · Lakeland, Tennessee6 districts · 15,419 homes
- ZIP Code 37087 · Lebanon, Tennessee5 districts · 20,411 homes · two bands, two answers
- ZIP Code 37144 · Lynchburg, Moore County, Tennessee5 districts · 1,494 homes
- ZIP Code 37388 · Lynchburg, Moore County, Tennessee5 districts · 11,605 homes
- ZIP Code 37601 · Johnson City, Tennessee5 districts · 18,070 homes
- ZIP Code 37874 · Sweetwater, Tennessee5 districts · 6,744 homes · two bands, two answers
- ZIP Code 38201 · McKenzie, Tennessee5 districts · 4,402 homes
- ZIP Code 38583 · Sparta, Tennessee5 districts · 11,242 homes
- ZIP Code 37027 · Brentwood, Tennessee4 districts · 22,617 homes · two bands, two answers
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: 331 of the 631 ZIP Code areas in Tennessee 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.