Every school has its over-subscription criteria published every year in the information available to parents before they apply.
Thus is not unique or particular to academies.
Local Authority schools nationwide have traditionally had a range of such criteria - feeder schools, priority areas, catchments, distance, siblings , fair banding, ability etc etc. It is, I agree, common for LA schools within an area to have similar criteria or ones that have co-evolved to ensure eg all houses have a catchment school, where there are fixed catchments or priority areas.
The academy schools that have left LA control also have a range of published over-subscription criteria. They are often remarkably similar to the predecessor LA schools’ ones. However, over time it is possible that the LA co-ordination that kept an ‘area wide’ view may wane to the advantage of some and disadvantage of others - that said, I know of a school that tried a unilateral ‘land grab’ to eliminate some poorer streets and appropriate some richer ones and they got roundly rebuffed in terms of being able to implement the changed admission criteria (these have to be published and can be objected to).