Help! How do I untie this knot? (Sorry, long post )

[mummy2zni]

Hi - am hoping for some advice. We need to move areas and I have no idea how to untie the knot of renting a house - finding a school.

Back story: Two DCs current ages 13 and 10. Both in a middle school yrs 8 and 6 respectively. DH has new job so we are now both working on the other side of "the city" to where we are currently renting. Bit of a no-brainer to move closer to our respective work and slash our commute times. Both DCs happy to move. We want them to finish up this school yr where they are & start new school year in new place. Have not arranged new property to move to as yet but have good idea of areas...

So... 1) ds is simple enough yr 8 to yr 9 - have been told by admission authority that there are places at 2 of the schools that we would like. Get house, apply to school and there we are... I hope...

2) dd quite a bit trickier : we need to indicate preferences for 3 schools as transition from yr 6 to yr 7. As don't have new address yet, need to apply from current (whole other county!) address; which of course means if school oversubscribed distance excludes. Once new address can be confirmed, submit change of address and the whole allocation starts again. Which makes me worry that we go for house A and still don't get a school we want but if we had chosen house B we might have!!

Also worried this may result in DCs at 2 different schools one (or both!!) further than anticipated from home (thus relying on us to get them there (they currently walk to school) plus our own commutes...

Argh I feel like I'm twisting in circles... must remember to breathe!! Surely we can't be the only ones who face this scenario..?

Any tips or hints would be greatly appreciated! Hope I've given enough info...