School districts in Virginia
33% of the 895 populated ZIP Code areas in Virginia are served by more than one school district — 294 of them, which puts the state 37th among the fifty-two. It is organized into 135 unified districts and 1 elementary district, the largest being Fairfax County at 427,149 homes. Its most divided ZIP Code area, 23847, is split between 5 districts for elementary grades alone. In 1 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 Louisa County and Goochland County, in 6 of them. Counted by homes rather than by ZIP Code area, 36% of the state's housing sits in a ZIP Code that more than one district serves.
How many school districts are in Virginia?
136: the Census boundary file draws 136 school districts in Virginia that reach at least one ZIP Code area with homes, 135 unified, 1 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 Virginia lists them all: find your school district by ZIP code.
How often a ZIP Code here crosses a district line
The state sits well below the national rate of 53%. Fairfax County alone covers 427,149 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: 294 of the 895 do.
- ZIP Code areas with a district895
- Served by more than one district294 (33%)
- Grade school and high school differ1 (0.1%)
- No high school district named1
- Unified districts135
- Elementary districts1
- Secondary districts0
- Homes in no district at all0
District pages for Virginia, largest first
Fairfax County is the largest of them by far: at 427,149 homes it holds at least 9 times as many as Albemarle County, second on this list with 47,284. It reaches 49 ZIP Code areas, and the areas it covers alone are counted on its own page rather than assumed from its size.
- Fairfax County Public Schools427,149 homes · 49 ZIP areas
- Albemarle County Public Schools47,284 homes · 24 ZIP areas
- Charlottesville City Public Schools21,420 homes · 5 ZIP areas
- Louisa County Public Schools17,692 homes · 12 ZIP areas
- Rockbridge County Public Schools11,261 homes · 13 ZIP areas
- Falls Church City Public Schools6,172 homes · 4 ZIP areas
The most divided ZIP Code area in Virginia
ZIP Code area 23847 holds 6,048 homes, and 5 districts each take a meaningful share of them for elementary grades — Greensville County first at 51%, then Emporia City. A lookup that names the first is describing that share of the homes and silently not the 2,979 homes that remain.
Each percentage here is a share of the 6,048 homes counted in ZIP Code 23847, 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 6,048 homes counted in ZIP Code 23847, so one cell is 173 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.
- Greensville County Public Schools3,069 of 6,048 homes51%
- Emporia City Public Schools2,647 of 6,048 homes44%
- Brunswick County Public Schools177 of 6,048 homes2.9%
- Southampton County Public Schools94 of 6,048 homes1.6%
- Sussex County Public Schools61 of 6,048 homes1.0%
For grade school, an answer of one district name would be wrong for 2,979 of the 6,048 here.
Where a single district name still works in Virginia
Across the 895 ZIP Code areas in Virginia with homes in them, an answer of one district name misses 264,169 of the 3,618,352 homes they hold. That is 7.3% of the state, and in 578 of the areas the largest district for the early grades holds every home counted: this is a state where the familiar answer is usually the right one, and the areas below are where it is not.
In ZIP Code 23223 · East Highland Park, Virginia the largest district for grade school is Richmond City, and naming it alone misses 11,099 of the 24,915 homes counted there. For grade school the rest is 11,099 homes with Henrico County.
In ZIP Code 23185 · Williamsburg, Virginia the largest district for grade school is James City County, and naming it alone misses 10,287 of the 21,779 homes counted there. For grade school the rest is 10,255 homes with Williamsburg City and York County; 32 homes in a district too small to name here.
In ZIP Code 23803 · Petersburg, Virginia the largest district for grade school is Petersburg City, and naming it alone misses 8,730 of the 20,101 homes counted there. For grade school the rest is 8,730 homes with Dinwiddie County and Chesterfield County.
Where a ZIP Code here names more than one district
Of the 895 ZIP Code areas in Virginia that the federal file names a district for, 294 name more than one school district. These are the 12 with the most, starting at 5 districts in one postal area: Emporia, Hanover County and Blackstone. 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 23847 · Emporia, Virginia5 districts · 6,048 homes
- ZIP Code 23015 · Hanover County, Virginia4 districts · 1,865 homes
- ZIP Code 23824 · Blackstone, Virginia4 districts · 3,421 homes
- ZIP Code 24141 · Radford, Virginia4 districts · 10,008 homes
- ZIP Code 24553 · Buckingham County, Virginia4 districts · 952 homes
- ZIP Code 20106 · Rappahannock County, Virginia3 districts · 1,855 homes
- ZIP Code 20130 · Paris, Virginia3 districts · 173 homes
- ZIP Code 20135 · Shenandoah Retreat, Virginia3 districts · 1,306 homes
- ZIP Code 22408 · Fredericksburg, Virginia3 districts · 11,820 homes
- ZIP Code 22435 · Northumberland County, Virginia3 districts · 1,156 homes
- ZIP Code 22630 · Front Royal, Virginia3 districts · 13,986 homes
- ZIP Code 22663 · Clarke County, Virginia3 districts · 701 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: 294 of the 895 ZIP Code areas in Virginia 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.