Buying a $6M Home in Los Altos Hills: Will My Child Go to Gunn or Los Altos High?

Direct answer

Look at the house number, not the town name. By land area, about 37% of Los Altos Hills is in PAUSD; the rest is in LASD plus MVLA. Checked address by address, the town's 28 single-family sales in Q3 2026 were zoned 11 for Gunn, 14 for Los Altos High and 3 for Mountain View High.

The town's median sale price for the quarter was $6.625M (MLSListings), and the 16 homes that sold for $6M or more were spread across all three high schools' attendance areas. The two paths are also built differently. On the PAUSD side, kindergarten through 12th grade sits in one district, and every one of this quarter's 11 PAUSD addresses came back with the same line: Nixon Elementary, Fletcher Middle, Gunn High. On the LASD side, a child stays through 8th grade and is then handed to a separate district, MVLA, which places students at Los Altos High or Mountain View High according to its own attendance areas. The town name, the 94022 or 94024 ZIP code and the price band can't tell you which path a child will take. The answer comes from each of the three districts' official tools, address by address, and finally from written confirmation by the district's registration office.

Who this article is for

• Families with a budget of $5M to $10M-plus who are touring single-family homes in Los Altos Hills and have been assuming that a Los Altos Hills address means Los Altos schools
• Buyers whose shortlist includes addresses on both the PAUSD and the LASD side, and who want to know which district covers each stage, elementary through high school, before they write an offer
• Parents of preschool or elementary-age children who are looking into both Gardner Bullis and Bullis Charter and want to understand how each school relates to a home's address
• Buyers based overseas or out of state who plan to run most of their due diligence remotely and need a checklist that leaves a written record

Three dimensions that decide the answer

"Which school district is Los Altos Hills in?" has no real answer until you are looking at a specific house. The Town of Los Altos Hills doesn't run schools itself. Public education across the town comes from three independent school districts, and the side of the line a house number falls on decides a child's whole path for the next decade and more. Taken as three dimensions, the picture comes into focus.

Dimension one: at the district level, one town splits in two

Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) says so on its new-student enrollment page: some areas of Los Altos Hills and Portola Valley are within PAUSD boundaries. The rest of the town belongs, for K-8, to the Los Altos School District (LASD) and, for 9-12, to the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District (MVLA). The line is an old one. The town's own 2004 document, A History of Public Education in Los Altos Hills, records that the boundary between PAUSD and LASD/MVLA was drawn in 1956. The same document notes that, as of 2004, 418 Los Altos Hills students were attending PAUSD.

How much does each side cover? Overlay the U.S. Census Bureau's current TIGERweb school district layers on the Los Altos Hills town limits and sample on a grid spaced roughly 80 meters (about 260 feet) apart, and you get an estimate by land area, not by household. PAUSD takes about 37% and LASD about 63%. The LASD portion falls entirely within MVLA, so there is no third combination anywhere in town. The PAUSD area lies broadly in the town's northwest, but the boundary is not a straight line. In the address-level results in the next section, two homes that sold less than 500 meters (about 1,600 feet) apart fall on opposite sides of it.

Dimension two: two paths, with different hand-off points

PAUSD is a unified district, responsible for kindergarten through 12th grade. For this quarter's 11 PAUSD addresses, the district's lookup tool returned the same line every time: Nixon Elementary (K-5, at 1711 Stanford Avenue on the Stanford campus), Fletcher Middle (6-8, 655 Arastradero Road, Palo Alto) and Gunn High (9-12, 780 Arastradero Road, Palo Alto). From the first day of school to graduation, the district never changes. Registration, the school calendar and the rules for moving between schools all run on one system. PAUSD's School Placement page states that students are assigned to a school by the district's Registration Services office and are generally assigned to their neighborhood school.

On the LASD side, two districts run a relay. LASD covers through 8th grade: Gardner Bullis Elementary's website states that the school serves TK through 6th grade and that its students go on to Egan Junior High for 7th and 8th. After 8th grade, the child moves to MVLA, which places students at Los Altos High or Mountain View High by its own attendance areas. Mountain View High's website states that its students come from three cities, Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. Los Altos High's new-student registration page asks for proof of residence in the Los Altos High attendance area. An LASD-side address therefore has to be checked twice: with LASD for K-8, then with MVLA for 9-12.

Nor is there just one combination within the LASD side. Of this quarter's 17 LASD addresses, 13 were Gardner Bullis plus Egan, 1 was Covington plus Blach, and 3 were Loyola plus Blach. At high school, the first 14 were zoned for Los Altos High and the 3 Loyola addresses for Mountain View High.

Dimension three: two schools named Bullis, under different rules

The pair Los Altos Hills buyers confuse most often is Gardner Bullis and Bullis Charter.

• Gardner Bullis Elementary is an LASD public elementary school with an attendance area set by address. Its campus, at 25890 Fremont Road, sits inside the Los Altos Hills town limits on the Census Bureau layers, and the school's website says it opened in 2009. When the town's 2004 document says there was no public school in town, it is describing the years before that opening. For the school's current operating status, grade span and district, go by its current page in the California Department of Education (CDE) School Directory. PAUSD's transfer page also describes a joint arrangement with LASD under which PAUSD families living in Los Altos Hills can request a transfer to Gardner Bullis. It takes a separate application; the address itself does not carry that eligibility.
• Bullis Charter School (BCS) is a TK-8 charter school. Its website states that enrollment is governed by the California Education Code and by its charter with the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE), that any TK-8 student in California may apply, and that when a grade receives more applications than it has spots, a public random drawing is held after the open enrollment period closes.

The BCS lottery runs on 8 preference levels, per the current wording on its website. The first 4, in order, all require living within LASD boundaries: siblings of current BCS students, children who qualify for free or reduced-price meals (capped at 10% of the openings in each grade), children of BCS staff, and all other children living within LASD. Only the last 4 levels cover applicants outside LASD. For Los Altos Hills buyers, this ties straight back to the house number. A PAUSD-area address is not within LASD boundaries, so in the BCS lottery it ranks behind LASD residents. As of November 6, 2026, the BCS website still shows the lottery date for the 2026-27 school year (March 21, 2026); for 2027-28, go by the date the school publishes. For how BCS fits alongside the other schools in Los Altos, see Buying a $5M Home in Los Altos: Will My Child Definitely Go to Los Altos High?

Los Altos Hills by path: 28 Q3 2026 sales, checked address by address

The core numbers first. In July–September 2026, MLSListings recorded 28 single-family sales in Los Altos Hills, with no duplicate entries after de-duplicating by MLS number. Checked address by address with the three districts' official tools, 11 were in PAUSD and zoned for Gunn, 14 were zoned for Los Altos High and 3 for Mountain View High. The 16 homes that sold for $6M or more were spread across all three high schools' areas: 6 Gunn, 9 Los Altos High and 1 Mountain View High.

What to remember: PAUSD addresses accounted for 11 of this quarter's 28 sales, about 39%, which lines up roughly with the land-area estimate of about 37%. Close to four in ten sales fell on the PAUSD side, so this is not an edge case. Price doesn't separate the paths either: sales at $6M or more turned up in all three high schools' areas. Neither does ZIP code. Of the 24 sales in 94022, 11 were PAUSD and 13 LASD; the 4 in 94024 were all LASD, yet at high school they split, 1 to Los Altos High and 3 to Mountain View High. The table shows only where this quarter's sales fell. The $6M-and-above column is likewise just this quarter's distribution. It says nothing about the relative standing of any school or area, and it can't be used to infer prices in any part of town.

How the lookup was done: on November 6, 2026, each of the 28 addresses was resolved against the three districts' official tools and their boundary data (PAUSD School Finder, LASD School Locator and MVLA School Locator). The district-level result was then cross-checked with the U.S. Census Bureau Geocoder and TIGERweb school district layers, and every result agreed. This is an address-level check of one quarter's sales. It does not cover every address, and any individual address should be confirmed in writing with the district's registration office.

The market side: a median 20 days on market, and how much time that leaves to verify

The core numbers first. According to MLSListings sales data compiled by MK Bay Area Pulse, Los Altos Hills recorded 28 single-family sales in Q3 2026 at a median price of $6,625,000, with 42.9% all-cash, a median 20 days on market and a median sale price of 98.0% of original list price. In the same quarter a year earlier there were 31 sales and a median 10 days on market, and Palo Alto's median in Q3 2026 was 9 days.

What to remember: a 20-day median is longer than the 10 days of the same quarter last year and the 9 days in Palo Alto this quarter, which looks like breathing room. The median hides the spread. Of this quarter's 28 sales, 7 went into contract within 7 days of hitting the MLS and 11 within 14 days (MLS DOM). The median sale price came in at 98.0% of original list, so most deals settled near or below asking, and that negotiation happens before contract. School assignment needs to be pinned down before the bargaining starts. For how list price and sale price relate here, and why the pattern runs the other way in neighboring Los Altos, compare Why Do Homes in Los Altos Hills Close Below Asking While Los Altos Is Still Being Bid Over List? Two caveats on the numbers. These are town-wide figures: sales assigned to three different high schools sit inside one median, so $6.625M can't be read as the price on either side. And 28 sales is a small sample, so a single quarter's median days on market can swing noticeably on a few homes that sat for a long time.

Before you write the offer: an address check timed to a 20-day market

Working back from this quarter's 20-day median, and from the roughly four in ten sales that went into contract within two weeks, the school check on a Los Altos Hills address is best finished within 3 business days of getting the address, ahead of the first round of negotiation. The order is sort first, then pin down the schools, then get it in writing:

1. Day 1, sort first: is it in PAUSD? Enter the full house number in the School Finder linked from PAUSD's new-student enrollment page. If the result is inside PAUSD, the schools PAUSD returns hold from elementary through high school. If not, go to the next step. Take a screenshot and note the date.
2. Day 1, check the LASD side twice. Use the School Locator on LASD's website for elementary and middle school, then the School Locator on MVLA's School Boundaries page to see whether high school is Los Altos High or Mountain View High. Each district governs its own stretch, and one tool's result can't stand in for the other's.
3. Day 2, check again against a third official source. The Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) School District Locator page points to the County Assessor's office as the place to look up which district serves a street address or land parcel. You can also enter the address in the U.S. Census Bureau Geocoder and choose to return geographies; the result lists the school districts. Both stop at the district level, and SCCOE's page itself says to contact the district for the assigned school. If the address sits near the line between the two sides, run all three districts' tools. A tool that can't find the address is useful information in itself.
4. Days 2-3, get it in writing. Send the address and your lookup screenshots to the relevant district's registration office: on the PAUSD side, Registration Services (650-329-3707); on the LASD side, LASD and MVLA separately. Ask each for written confirmation of the assigned schools and the current year's registration requirements.
5. Before the offer goes in, file it. Screenshots, dates and district replies go into the buyer's due diligence file. If the offer keeps a buyer's investigation period, written confirmation can be completed within it. If you shorten or waive that period to compete, these steps have to be done before you submit the offer.

Two more dates belong on the same calendar. First, eligibility follows actual residence. PAUSD's registration page states that a student must be currently and continuously residing with a parent or guardian whose home is within the district's boundaries, that registrations are accepted only from current residents, and that future residents can register no earlier than two weeks before the move-in date. Los Altos High asks for proof of residence in its attendance area at registration, and a property tax bill printed from the County website is not accepted, because it doesn't show the owner's name. Plan closing, move-in and the registration window backward together. Second, if Bullis Charter is on the table, confirm whether the address is inside LASD boundaries first, then check BCS's open enrollment period and lottery date on its website.

What MK Group has seen in practice

At this level in Los Altos Hills, a buyer's timeline is usually set by money and structure, leaving little room for anything else. MK Group, co-founded by Marie Wang (DRE# 02110980) and Kevin Mo (DRE# 02127623), has two Los Altos Hills buy-side closings in its anonymized case library that show this. In May 2026, a buyer purchasing through a corporate entity bought in Los Altos Hills for about $11M, all cash, locked in two weeks. The team first settled in whose name the home would be bought, how the funds would move and how it would be held, and only then advanced to closing, rather than squeezing the closing for speed (case details). Earlier, in November 2025, Marie Wang walked through another deal in a video on her YouTube channel, @MarieWang (44K+ subscribers). An employee of a leading AI company converted pre-IPO stock to cash on the secondary market, bought in Los Altos Hills all cash, and negotiated more than $1M off the original price (case details).

Neither deal's record involves schools, and neither client's family makeup or children were disclosed. They appear here to make one point. In Los Altos Hills, all-cash buyers locking a deal in two weeks and real back-and-forth at the negotiating table are the actual pace, and structure, funds and negotiation already fill that window. School assignment happens to be the item that is easiest to finish early and easiest to put in writing: a district tool screenshot and an emailed reply from a registration office don't require anyone on site. Cross-border families have even less time. Marie Wang once hosted the family of an entrepreneur from Shenzhen who called in the morning and asked to tour that same day. Within half an hour, Marie had pulled four candidates from MLS and off-market inventory, in Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Los Altos Hills and Los Altos, and the tour was done in half a day (case details). That visit was a first look, and the client made no offer on the spot. But if a child's school is one of the reasons for choosing a home, then on a schedule like that, the school path for every candidate should already be checked before the route is planned.

Common mistakes

Mistake 1: "The address says Los Altos Hills, so my child goes to Los Altos schools"

Not necessarily. PAUSD's new-student enrollment page states that some areas of Los Altos Hills are within PAUSD boundaries, about 37% of the town by land area. Of the 28 single-family homes sold in Los Altos Hills in Q3 2026, an address-by-address check put 11 in PAUSD, zoned for Nixon, Fletcher and Gunn, with no connection to LASD or MVLA. The "Los Altos" in the town's name and the "Los Altos" in the district names belong to two separate naming systems, and one can't be inferred from the other.

Mistake 2: "ZIP code 94022 or 94024 tells you the district"

It doesn't. Of this quarter's 24 sales in 94022, 11 were PAUSD and 13 were LASD plus MVLA. The 4 sales in 94024 were all LASD, yet they split at high school into 1 Los Altos High and 3 Mountain View High. A mailing address isn't the town limits, either: at least 1 of the 28 homes carried a Los Altos Hills address while sitting, on the Census Bureau layers, on unincorporated county land outside the town limits, and its district still came down to which side of the line that house number falls on. The only input that works is the full house number.

Mistake 3: "If it's on the LASD side, high school is Los Altos High"

LASD goes only through 8th grade; high school belongs to MVLA. MVLA has two comprehensive high schools, Los Altos High and Mountain View High, each with its own attendance area. Of this quarter's 17 LASD addresses, 3 were zoned for Mountain View High, and Mountain View High's own website states that its students come from Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. Check high school separately with MVLA's School Locator, and expect to show proof of residence in the matching attendance area at registration.

Mistake 4: "Gardner Bullis is the same as Bullis Charter, and living in Los Altos Hills gets you in"

They are two different schools. Gardner Bullis is an LASD public elementary school on a campus inside the Los Altos Hills town limits, with an attendance area set by address and grades TK through 6. Bullis Charter is a TK-8 charter school authorized by SCCOE. Any student in California may apply, oversubscribed grades go to a public lottery, and admission follows 8 preference levels, the first 4 of which all require living within LASD boundaries. A Los Altos Hills address in the PAUSD area is not within LASD boundaries, so it ranks behind LASD residents in the BCS lottery. Even inside LASD boundaries, residence earns a preference, not a guaranteed seat.

Mistake 5: "A PAUSD-side address is guaranteed Gunn for high school"

This quarter, all 11 PAUSD addresses came back from the district's tool with the Nixon, Fletcher, Gunn line. That is one quarter and one lookup date, though, not a commitment by the district for the whole area. Schools are assigned by PAUSD's registration office, and within the district they are still divided by attendance area, so any single address should go by that day's School Finder result and written confirmation from the registration office. For how to check the Gunn-Paly split inside PAUSD, see Buying a Palo Alto School-District Home: How Do I Know Whether an Address Feeds Gunn or Paly?

Next steps

1. The day you have a house number, use PAUSD's School Finder to see whether it's in PAUSD. If it isn't, check elementary and middle school with LASD's School Locator and high school with MVLA's School Locator. Screenshot each step and note the date.
2. Cross-check the district-level result through the County Assessor lookup that SCCOE's School District Locator page points to, or with the Census Bureau Geocoder. For an address near the line, run all three districts' tools.
3. Send your results to the relevant district's registration office and ask for written confirmation of the assigned schools and the current year's registration requirements. On the LASD side, get one for K-8 and one for high school.
4. If you're considering Bullis Charter, first confirm whether the address is inside or outside LASD boundaries, then check BCS's open enrollment period and lottery date on its website. PAUSD-area families considering Gardner Bullis should confirm the current year's joint-transfer rules with PAUSD's registration office.
5. Build all of this into the offer timeline and finish before the first round of negotiation. In Q3 2026, Los Altos Hills single-family homes spent a median 20 days on market, and 11 of the 28 went into contract within 14 days of listing.