it is LIKELY-- maybe even "highly likely" that this is a gigantic game of musical chairs, in which all of the other kids in the pool ALSO have multiple acceptances and waitlisting options on the table.
Wait a few weeks and see what opens up-- find out what dates and deadlines for commitments look like, and keep calling your top two preferred options to check in on that waitlist.
I wasn't specific about it, but this is why I asked if your child was on a waitlist. Our experience with choice programs in our city was that all the parents who were looking for a "something better than neighborhood" school applied for almost all of the optional programs, and many of the private programs too. Once the public optional school lottery was held and notifications were made, there was a period of a few weeks where kids on the waitlist move up quite a bit as parents decline lower choice schools if their child got into multiple schools. Then there was a second wave of declines that happened again during the first week of the school year, because there was a large group of parents who kept their child on multiple acceptance lists "just in case" (even though it was against school district policy - no one actually checked). I was really bummed after our ds' kindergarten lottery - he was #74 on the wait list for the school I really wanted to send him to (note that I can still remember that # 10 years later lol). I gave up and we sent him to the one school (out of several) that he lotteried into. Found out a few weeks later that one of his friends from preschool got into the other school - not because he got in on the first round of the lottery but because he was *#72* on the wait list until the week school started. I called the school up and found out my ds had moved up to #2 on the wait list, we left him on it, and an opening did come up for him in first grade. By that time, we'd totally changed our minds about where we wanted him anyway, but that's life
Best wishes,
polarbear
