nisht > That’s actually the law in NYS outside of NYC.
There is a nasty follow-up to NYT article by a so-called “rights organization” describing the plight of pupils in a majority-Jewish district. They don’t mention “Jews”, they simply explain how “white people” oppress the “not English-speaking people” (sic!). Funniest numbers there is that average district spends – gasp – $26K per pupil, while these poor souls get “only” $23K and, thus, are failing schools in huge numbers. Still, some of their allegations might have regel l’davar. They are admitting that transportation and textbooks to all students are legal, but they hint that the district increased eligibility – possibly in a legal way, as you say. They also imply that there is something funny going on with contracts given to the bus companies. While the source is totally treif and manipulates numbers even worse than NYT article, they obviously have some information that this is based on.