A seven-year-old Latina student was months into her second grade year in California’s affluent Orinda Union School District when she was told to leave.

It started when Vivian’s mother, Maria, applied for her daughter to take part in the district’s free lunch program. Her application was twice denied because the district factored in the value of a cottage where Vivian stayed during the week. Maria’s employer owns the cottage — it’s where the two stay as Maria works as a live-in nanny. After Maria’s application, the school district hired a private investigator, who reported that Vivian lived with her grandmother in Bay Point — outside the district’s bounds — although the family that employs Maria told the San Jose Mercury News that Vivian only stays with her grandmother on weekends.

A week after Vivian’s free lunch application was denied, she was kicked out of school altogether.

Vivian's situation is not uncommon — across the U.S., parents mistakenly or purposefully enroll their children in a school outside their district. For some families who change addresses mid-way into the year, or have their children living part-time with another parent or relative, school enrollment isn’t always clear cut. Others are looking for a better education for their children. Because school funding relies heavily on property taxes, affluent districts often invest thousands more dollars in a child’s education than a bordering, low-income district.

There’s no official count of the number of families who send their children to school outside their district. One U.C. Berkeley study estimated that as many as 10 percent of high school students enrolled in the Berkeley district lived outside its bounds and were not authorized for a transfer. Nearly half of all states have enacted some degree of open enrollment legislation, which can allow students to choose schools within or even outside of their district. California is not one of them, and neither is Pennsylvania.

In 2012, a Philadelphia couple — Cuban-American Hamlet Garcia and Ukrainian immigrant Olesia Garcia — were told that their 6-year-old could no longer attend her Montgomery County school. Fiorella was registered at the affluent Pine Road Elementary under her father’s address while the couple went through a phase of separation, but when they got back together mid-school year and moved to Philadelphia, the family was told that Fiorella wasn’t allowed to finish the final two months of her years. Her parents were threatened with arrest and a felony charge for theft of services to the tune of $10,000. The two were arrested and are now paying back the months of education that the court ruled stolen.

Fifteen other families in Lower Moreland had enrolled their child illegally. The Garcias were the only family to be charged.