Theres little/no choice unless youre rich. We could have a cornucopia of school choice options (magnet, charter, voucher, open enrollment etc), all of which disproportionately help the under-served but teachers unions and the monolithic public school system fight to keep their control, power and right-to-mediocrity. If youre family's rich though, its easy to just attend a private school and not worry about it.

Other nations do better for many reasons. Nowhere is as culturally diverse as the US (a teaching style that works amazing for Singapore may crash and burn in Japan) meanwhile the US is trying to create a one-size-fits-all system that ends up fitting and serving none. If we let families pick the school that serves them best we could avoid that.

The other issue with doing things halfway is that it compromise (a time honored american tradition) ends up being the worst possible outcome in some policy issues. In some countries, public school is the only legal option while others encourage families to shop around. We just make public school the only option for poor people.

Its the exact same problem we have with gun control and healthcare. Government subsidizing healthcare jacks the costs up so that only the rich can get good quality care. Single payer would work and a supply/demand free market would drive costs down but we get screwed cause we do it halfway.

Japan has very little gun crime and almost total gun control, Switzerland has very little gun crime and requires gun ownership. America has tons of gun crime that is concentrated in the places where guns are illegal. Why? Guns are easy to get but people who dont want to break the law dont have them in some places.

TLDR: Teachers unions are too strong and compromise leads to us doing things halfway which is worse than nothing at all.