Cookie,
there are some schools like that here too that do a lottery, but i didn't even apply to the, i only applied to this one school cuz it was in the same town were in and we were "zoned" for it (sort of, maybe in-area is the right term). he had to qualify and then they only had so many spots. they said that a committee decides who gets the spots if more kids qualify than the number of spots they had.