[usmeteora]

Same in America.

I went to a public urban highschool for the first two years of highschool, then a scholarship for a private highschool where tuition is $40k/yr.

So in that regard, I would say its comparable that America also has a range of top tier private schools, and then both high end and low end public schools, with the high end ones residing in rich suburbias.

Also, I think there is some slight flip of how public and private schools are referred to in the UK vs US, and that might directly conflate the comparisons we are making in our heads? Is it not the reverse in the UK, where a private school is actually the default district school and the public is a school with tuition? I feel like I remember being confused about this previously in my life with a UK person. Maybe that is also the source of confusion.