People in general will migrate to the shul where they feel most comfortable. This will usually be a shul that is directly part of one’s particular heritage, such as a specific chasidish shtiebel or yeshiva alumni minyan. In these cases there’s no problem with minhag hamokom. If a founding group decide the basis for their shul’s way of avodas Hashem then the clear halocho is that anybody joining after that must adhere, in public, to these customs, whether liturgy or any other type of custom. The halachic basis for adhering to minhag hamokom is from the Torah proscription lo sisgogedu, do not make your communities into agudos agudos, various opposing groups within one community. Hundreds of years ago one community was almsot always a single town or village. In large cities however, the minhag hamokom according to poskim has been decided as the particular bais medrash that you daven in. Jay is basically correct in his post regarding various types of what we might call “minhag”. A family tradition isn’t a halachic minhag. And even so, you do have to be careful with family traditions because they can sometimes go into the gedder of al titosh toras imechoh.
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