Boston's school choice system is presently organized intro districts, and parents can submit preferences for schools in their district (which are the processed in a deferred acceptance algorithm).
There have been concerns about transportation costs and times, and several new proposals are now under consideration, ranging from local schools to increasing the number of school districts, so that each one is smaller. (Here's the BPS page on the proposals and the public discussions that will now take place.)
Changing back to 100% local schools determined by home address would of course remove the need for any algorithm to process preferences. However all the other proposals will continue to need a school choice algorithm. As far as I know, there isn't any discussion about changing the algorithm, it's all about re-defining the choice sets.
"Deferred acceptance" suggests the schools are submitting preferences over students as well, yes? Bill the cost of busing students to the schools they attend (i.e. the cost comes out of their budget). Do you want to pay for busing n students from the far corners of the district, or replace m computers in the computer lab and take closer but otherwise slightly dispreferred students? Let the schools make that decision.
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