Bastrop County School Districts: What Home Buyers Need to Verify
The most common assumption I hear from buyers is that a Bastrop mailing address means Bastrop ISD. It often does. It also often doesn’t. Five school districts levy taxes on property inside Bastrop County, and their boundaries do not follow city limits or ZIP codes. Bastrop ISD has changed attendance zones for consecutive school years, and future growth may require additional changes. This page explains which districts appear on Bastrop County parcels, the published 2025 tax rates, recent campus changes, and the safest order for verifying a specific address.
I am a REALTOR®, not a school district employee or an education professional. Everything below points back to the districts, the appraisal district and the Texas Education Agency so you can check it yourself. Attendance zones change — confirm with the district in writing before you write an offer.
Five districts, not one
| District | Roughly where | 2025 total rate |
|---|---|---|
| Bastrop ISD | Central and western county — Bastrop, Cedar Creek, Red Rock, part of the Dale area | 1.0679 |
| Elgin ISD | Northwestern county, plus parts of Travis and Lee counties | 1.2234 |
| Smithville ISD | Southeastern county, plus a sliver of Fayette County | 0.9425 |
| McDade ISD | Northeastern county, around McDade | 0.9555 |
| Lexington ISD | A Lee County district that extends into northern Bastrop County | 0.8610 |
That list comes from two places that have to agree with each other: the Texas Comptroller’s School District Property Value Study for Bastrop County, and Bastrop CAD’s own published rate history. Both show exactly these five and no others.
Districts people assume are here and aren’t: Del Valle ISD, Manor ISD and Giddings ISD do not appear on Bastrop CAD’s taxing-unit list. Del Valle ISD is a Travis County district — if you are comparing Bastrop County against Del Valle, you are comparing two counties, two appraisal districts and two sets of exemptions.
Your mailing address is not your school district
This is not a technicality. Four concrete examples, all from this county:
- Elgin ISD spans three counties. The district’s own improvement plan puts it at more than 168 square miles across Bastrop, Lee and Travis counties. Elgin High School and Neidig Elementary are literally on County Line Road.
- A Bastrop County address can be zoned to a district headquartered in another county. Lexington ISD is a Lee County district that taxes property here.
- Smithville ISD extends into Fayette County.
- A “Dale, TX 78616” mailing address can be Bastrop ISD. Camino Real Elementary — a Bastrop ISD campus — is at 2380 FM 812, Dale.
How to verify an address, in the right order
- Pull the parcel at Bastrop CAD first. The appraisal record lists every taxing unit for that exact parcel, including the school district. It is parcel-level rather than approximate, and it is what will actually appear on the tax bill.
- Then identify the campus. Bastrop ISD publishes official 2026-27 attendance-zone maps for elementary, middle and high schools. Elgin ISD provides an address-lookup tool. When a district uses one campus per grade band, the key question is whether the parcel is inside that district.
- Then call the district and get it confirmed. Before the option period ends, not after.
Why the order matters. Bastrop ISD adopted different attendance zones for 2025-26 and 2026-27, and the district describes boundary review as an ongoing public process driven by enrollment, growth, capacity, programs, and feeder patterns. A map confirms the designated year; it does not guarantee a future-year assignment.
Bastrop ISD — 17 campuses, and two of them changed names
The county’s largest district, with 13,370 students in 2024-25 state-reported enrollment.
The renaming is the single most out-of-date fact on other people’s Bastrop pages. In 2025, under its 2021 bond program, Bastrop ISD finished converting both intermediate campuses into full grade 6-8 middle schools. Bastrop Intermediate is now Riverside Middle School. Cedar Creek Intermediate is now Creekside Middle School. Listings, relocation guides and agent neighborhood pages across this market still name the old campuses.
Current campuses. Nine elementary: Adelton, Bluebonnet, Camino Real, Cedar Creek, Colony Oaks, Emile, Lost Pines, Mina and Red Rock. Four middle: Bastrop, Cedar Creek, Creekside and Riverside. Four high: Bastrop High, Cedar Creek High, Colorado River Collegiate Academy and Genesis High. The last two do not appear on the zone maps because they serve students district-wide — and admission to Colorado River Collegiate Academy is by application.
Adelton Elementary opened in August 2025 as the district’s ninth. At the groundbreaking, Superintendent Barry Edwards noted it was the third new campus in three years, and that before 2022 Bastrop ISD had not opened a school in over a decade — Cedar Creek High School in 2009.
Bastrop ISD held the groundbreaking for Elementary School 10 in the SilverLeaf area on July 28, 2026. Because construction schedules and attendance boundaries can change, buyers should use the district’s project announcements and boundary page for the latest opening and assignment information rather than relying on an older projected date.
One number worth correcting: Bastrop ISD’s May 2023 bond was $321.5 million. A widely repeated figure of $272.77 million is only one of the package’s three categories — New Schools and Classroom Expansion — not the total.
Do not use a proposed 2026 rate as an adopted figure. School districts adopt annual tax rates through a public process. Until the current rate is formally adopted and published, use the 2025 rate only as historical context and ask the district or tax office for the latest official action.
Elgin ISD — the highest school rate in the county, and a zoning change coming
5,959 students in 2024-25, and the fastest-growing district in the county — its demographer ranked it fifth in the entire Austin-Round Rock metro for percentage student growth.
Nine campuses, in a structure that surprises people. Five elementary campuses run PK-5: Booker T. Washington, Elgin Elementary, Neidig, Harvest Ridge (opened August 2024) and Trinity Ranch (opened August 2025). Then Elgin Intermediate is grade 6 only, Elgin Middle is grades 7-8, and there are two high schools — Elgin High and Phoenix High, a choice campus you apply to.
The practical consequence for a buyer: Elgin ISD currently zones only its elementary campuses. Every sixth grader in the district goes to the same building; every seventh and eighth grader goes to the same building. There is no secondary attendance zone to check. That changes in fall 2027, when Legacy Oak Middle School opens at 1973 FM 1704 — grades 6-8, capacity 1,200, about $108 million — and Elgin ISD will have secondary zoning for the first time. A sixth elementary is also in the bond program with no published opening date, so I am not giving one.
Elgin ISD’s current bond-program and construction pages are the best sources for project scope and schedule. Legacy Oak Middle School has broken ground and the district identifies fall 2027 as its planned opening; construction schedules and attendance-zone decisions should still be reconfirmed before purchase.
The rate is the headline. At 1.2234, Elgin ISD is about 28 cents per $100 above Smithville ISD — roughly $1,120 a year in school tax alone on a $400,000 taxable value. Elgin ISD territory inside Bastrop County also carries an Austin Community College tax; Bastrop ISD and Smithville ISD territory does not.
Smithville ISD — one campus per grade band
1,849 students in 2024-25 across four campuses: Brown Primary (PreK and kindergarten), Smithville Elementary (grades 1-5), Smithville Junior High (6-8) and Smithville High School (9-12).
Because there is exactly one campus per grade band, there is no intra-district zoning at all. Smithville ISD publishes no attendance map because it does not need one — the only question is whether an address is inside the district. It also carries the lowest rate of the four districts headquartered in this county at 0.9425, driven by a debt rate of just 0.18. Its last bond election was November 2016.
McDade ISD — and a correction worth making
377 students. McDade is widely described online as a K-8 district that sends its high schoolers to Elgin or Bastrop. That was historically true and it is not true now. McDade ISD is a PK-12 district with two campuses — an elementary campus and a secondary campus — and it runs its own high school, with its own athletics program. Federal school-directory data for 2025-26 lists its grade span as PK-12.
McDade ISD’s 2025 total tax rate is published by Bastrop CAD. For current bond obligations, facilities plans, enrollment structure, or a campus assignment, confirm directly with McDade ISD at (512) 273-2522 rather than inferring the answer from a tax-rate change.
Lexington ISD — the one everyone misses
Lexington ISD is headquartered in Lee County, and it levies taxes on property inside northern Bastrop County at a 2025 total rate of 0.8610 — the lowest of the five. If you are buying acreage in the north of the county, check the appraisal record rather than assuming Elgin or McDade.
What the school portion actually costs
| District | M&O | I&S (debt) | Total 2025 | On $400,000 taxable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bastrop ISD | 0.6669 | 0.4010 | 1.0679 | $4,272 |
| Elgin ISD | 0.7552 | 0.4682 | 1.2234 | $4,894 |
| Smithville ISD | 0.7625 | 0.1800 | 0.9425 | $3,770 |
| McDade ISD | 0.6669 | 0.2886 | 0.9555 | $3,822 |
| Lexington ISD | — | — | 0.8610 | $3,444 |
Three caveats that matter more than the table. These are tax year 2025 rates — 2026 rates are not adopted until late September 2026, so anyone quoting you a 2026 school rate today is guessing. They are the school portion only; county, road-and-bridge, city and emergency services districts sit on top. And they are before exemptions — the school homestead exemption is $140,000, which changes the number on an owner-occupied home substantially. If the property is inside a MUD or a PID, that is another line again.
Both of those are their own guides: Bastrop County property taxes and homestead exemptions and MUD and PID districts in Bastrop County.
Enrollment — and something the numbers just did
Bastrop County’s population reached an estimated 118,908 on July 1, 2025 — up 22.3% since the 2020 census, with 2,269 building permits issued in 2025. Bastrop ISD’s demographer had projected roughly 19,500 students within a decade.
Enrollment forecasts are planning tools, not guarantees. Near-term enrollment can differ from a demographer’s projection even while long-term county growth continues. Buyers should compare the district’s latest enrollment report, adopted budget, facilities plan, and current attendance-zone information rather than relying on a single growth headline.
What I can — and can’t — tell you about schools
I do not label a school or district as good, bad, or best. Those terms are subjective and can encourage steering. My role is to provide the same objective sources and verification process for every buyer, then let you evaluate programs, performance data, services, transportation, and other factors against your own priorities.
What I can be is a good source of sources. The National Association of REALTORS® frames the useful question well: not “are the schools good,” but “what makes a school good for you?” Then I point you at the people who can answer it against your criteria rather than mine. If test scores are what matter, the Texas Education Agency publishes them. If it is a specific program — ag, band, dual credit, robotics, special education services — the campus itself will tell you, and they are usually glad to. If it is the drive from your future driveway, do it at 7:15 on a Tuesday.
And I’ll do the part that is genuinely mine to do: confirm in writing which district and which campus a specific parcel is in, before you are past your option period.
Where to verify, by district
| District | How zoning works | Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Bastrop ISD | 2026-27 zone maps for elementary, middle and high. No address lookup. | District office, 906 Farm Street, Bastrop |
| Elgin ISD | Elementary zoned; grades 6, 7-8 and 9-12 are district-wide until 2027. | (512) 281-3434 |
| Smithville ISD | No zoning — one campus per grade band. | (512) 237-2487 |
| McDade ISD | No zoning — two campuses, PK-12. | (512) 273-2522 |
| Lexington ISD | Confirm directly; it is a Lee County district. | lexingtonisd.net |
Buying in Bastrop County?
If you want the district and campus for a specific address confirmed before you commit — or you want to know how the school rate changes the payment on two houses you are deciding between — call or text me at (512) 993-8488, or send me the address and I’ll check it.
Related reading: Property taxes and homestead exemptions · MUD and PID districts · Flood zones and elevation certificates · Septic systems and OSSF · Water, wells and Aqua WSC · Wildfire risk and home insurance · Ag exemption and rollback taxes · Bastrop TX neighborhoods
Written by Bre Meador, REALTOR® — All City Real Estate, Bastrop County, TX · U.S. Army veteran and former nurse · TREC #0835116
Read client reviews. Last updated August 5, 2026. This page is general information from a licensed REALTOR®, not tax, legal, engineering or insurance advice.