Best School Districts in the Austin Hill Country: Eanes, Lake Travis, and Dripping Springs ISD Compared

I have a daughter at Lake Travis High School. So when families call me asking which school district they should be moving into, I have a pretty personal take on that question, not just a professional one.

And honestly, that question comes up on almost every relocation call I take. Families moving to Austin from out of state, from California, from the northeast, they almost always lead with schools. Which makes total sense. You are about to spend $700k, $1.2M, maybe $2M on a house. The school district attached to that house matters.

So lets actually look at all three of the big districts out here in the Hill Country — Eanes ISD, Lake Travis ISD, and Dripping Springs ISD — with real numbers. Not a brochure. Not the version the school district publishes. The version that helps you figure out where to buy.

The Rankings (And Why Eanes Is in a Different Category)

Ok lets start with Eanes because it deserves its own paragraph. Niche ranked Eanes ISD the #1 school district in Texas and #7 in the entire country for 2026. That is not a regional ranking. That is competing against every public school district in America, and Eanes is in the top ten.

Westlake High School — the only high school in the district — ranked #19 nationally and #1 in Texas. West Ridge Middle School came in 2nd in the state. Hill Country Middle School came in 3rd. All six elementary schools landed in the top 20 in Texas. Every single school. That is not a coincidence, that is a culture.

Seven of the district’s nine schools have earned U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon recognition. The district has been a 1:1 technology district since 2011 — before most of the country was even having that conversation.

Lake Travis ISD earned an overall “A” rating from the Texas Education Agency in 2025, up from a B (89) in 2023. Niche gives the district strong marks across academics, teachers, and college readiness. Lake Travis High School has a 64% AP participation rate, which is genuinely impressive for a public school. The district has been growing fast — they serve all of Bee Cave and Lakeway now, plus chunks of Spicewood and southwest Austin — and they have kept the academic bar high while managing that growth.

Dripping Springs ISD ranks #24 in Texas on Niche’s 2026 list, with an overall A grade. Dripping Springs High School is ranked #126 in the state. That sounds like a big gap from Eanes and Lake Travis, but here is the context: there are 1,200+ school districts in Texas. Being 24th out of 1,200 is objectively excellent. The district has been absorbing a massive wave of new residents and still maintaining strong academics.

What the Numbers Actually Look Like Side by Side

Here is the honest comparison:

That tax rate line is worth sitting with for a second. On a $1,000,000 home, you are looking at roughly $8,322/year in Eanes ISD versus $10,397 in Lake Travis ISD versus $11,052 in Dripping Springs ISD. The best-ranked district has the lowest tax rate. I know. It does not feel right. But Eanes ISD is a small district with extremely high property values, which means they generate significant revenue per student even at a lower rate.

For context on what those rates mean at different price points:

These are rough figures before homestead exemption and any additional county/city layers. Your actual tax bill will depend on your appraised value and exemptions you qualify for. (We wrote a whole breakdown on Texas homestead exemptions and how to protest if you want the full picture on that.)

Which Neighborhoods Feed Which District

This is where it gets practical. Because “moving into Eanes ISD” and “moving into Lake Travis ISD” are not abstract choices — they map to specific neighborhoods, specific price points, and specific lifestyles.

Eanes ISD: Westlake and the Canyon Neighborhoods

Eanes ISD covers West Lake Hills, Rollingwood, Lost Creek, Davenport Ranch, Rob Roy, Seven Oaks, and Cuernavaca — plus parts of southwest Austin including Barton Creek Estates. The geographic footprint is not huge. It is a small, concentrated district with a single high school, which is part of why it has such a tight academic culture.

The price of entry is real. Median home prices in Westlake run around $2.5-2.6M. You can find homes in the $800k-$1.2M range in Lost Creek and some of the Barton Creek sections, but the district overall skews luxury. If you are coming from out of state and you are used to suburban pricing, Eanes ISD is going to be a sticker shock even before you get to the mortgage payment.

That said, the home values inside Eanes ISD have historically been among the most resilient in the entire Austin market. We covered this in detail in our Westlake Hills real estate guide — the district is a genuine price floor for the neighborhood. Buyers pay a premium to get in, and they tend to keep that premium when they sell.

Lake Travis ISD: Bee Cave, Lakeway, and the Lake Communities

Lake Travis ISD is a bigger district geographically. It covers all of Bee Cave and Lakeway, plus Spanish Oaks, Falconhead, Sweetwater, Lake Pointe, Rough Hollow, The Hills of Lakeway, Flintrock Falls, Serene Hills, West Cypress Hills, and reaches out into Spicewood.

This is where most families relocating to the Hill Country actually end up, and I think that is the right call for a lot of them. You get a genuinely excellent school district — TEA A-rated, strong AP programs, multiple award-winning campuses — in a price range that is still achievable. Lakeway medians run around $700-750k. Bee Cave is similar. You can get into new construction in communities like Rough Hollow or West Cypress Hills for $600-800k and still be in a top-20 Texas school district.

One thing worth noting about LTISD: the district has been growing fast. New elementary campuses have opened in the last few years to manage the influx. That growth comes with some growing pains — Lake Travis ISD ran a $4.2 million budget shortfall in 2025-26 and had to cut some positions. The district is navigating the same challenge every fast-growth suburb faces: enrollment outrunning revenue. They have managed it well so far, but it is something to watch.

We have done a deep dive on individual LTISD campuses in the Lake Travis ISD elementary schools comparison guide if you want to get granular about which campus you would be assigned based on your neighborhood.

Dripping Springs ISD: Hill Country Space and Room to Grow

Dripping Springs ISD is in Hays County, which is different from Eanes and Lake Travis (both Travis County). That matters for taxes — Hays County has its own separate tax layer — and it matters psychologically for some buyers who have a preference for one county over the other (usually for homestead exemption timing or appraisal district reasons).

The communities here have a different feel. Belterra, Headwaters, Double L Ranch, Big Sky Ranch, Parten Ranch — these are master-planned communities with more acreage, more land, more of that genuine Hill Country feel. You are also looking at more new construction than in Eanes or most of Lakeway, which means buyers can get into brand-new homes with builder incentives in an A-rated district.

Dripping Springs has been one of the fastest-growing parts of the Austin metro for several years running. Home prices in Dripping Springs have held up well. The trade-off is commute — if you work in downtown Austin, you are looking at 40-50 minutes in normal traffic, and Highway 290 can get gnarly. We wrote about this honestly in the Dripping Springs relocation guide.

The School-to-Home Value Equation

This is the question I get from investor-minded buyers all the time: does being in a better school district actually protect your home value?

The short answer is yes, and it is not subtle. School district quality is probably the single most durable price driver in residential real estate, more consistent than walkability scores, more consistent than HOA amenities, more consistent than proximity to a particular employer. People with kids will pay more, consistently, to be in a top school district. And people without kids will pay more to be near people with kids who are paying more. It creates a self-reinforcing cycle.

We wrote a whole article on how school districts influence home values if you want the mechanics of that in more detail. The short version: every time a school’s ranking improves, the homes in that attendance zone get a measurable bump. Every time it drops, you feel it in sales prices within a year or two.

Eanes ISD is the extreme version of this in Austin. The Westlake premium is real and it is almost entirely school-driven at this point. The location is great, the neighborhoods are beautiful, but there are other great neighborhoods and beautiful locations in Austin that do not command $2M+. The school district is doing a lot of heavy lifting on those prices.

What Relocating Families Actually Need to Know About Enrollment

A few practical things that do not always come up in the glossy relocation guides:

Open Enrollment and Transfer Policies

All three districts have some version of open enrollment or intra-district transfer policies, but availability varies. The short version: if you live in the attendance zone, you are in. If you want to transfer in from outside the district, space has to be available in the specific campus and grade level you need. Eanes ISD, given its size and reputation, tends to have limited open enrollment availability. You really need to live in the district.

Attendance Zone Verification

Before you make an offer on a house, verify the specific campus assignment for that address. This is especially important in areas where the district boundary runs through a neighborhood, or in newer communities where attendance zones have been redrawn as new campuses opened. The listing agent’s statement about which school the home feeds into should be verified directly with the district. I have seen enough cases where the listing had outdated school information to make this a non-negotiable step in my process.

Each district has an address lookup tool on their website. Use it before you close, not after.

Private School Options

All three areas have strong private school networks as well. St. Michael’s Academy, St. Gabriel’s, Regents School of Austin, Westlake Christian Academy — if you are considering private school from the start, the district assignment matters less. But it still matters for home value, so keep that in mind even if your kids will not be in the public system.

My Take: Which District Is Right for Which Buyer

If you have an unlimited budget and school ranking is the only variable, Eanes ISD is not a close call. It is the best public school district in Texas and one of the best in the country. Full stop.

But most buyers are not working with an unlimited budget. And for families who want a great school district — genuinely great, not just “good for a public school” great — without paying West Lake Hills prices, Lake Travis ISD is a compelling answer. The TEA A-rating, the AP programs, the new campuses, the community investment — this is a district that takes education seriously, and the home prices are within reach for most move-up buyers coming from out of state.

Dripping Springs ISD is the right answer for families who want space, who want the Hill Country aesthetic more than the suburb amenity package, and who are ok with a longer commute in exchange for more land and often more house for the money. The schools are genuinely excellent. The community has a strong identity and a lot of parent involvement. And the new construction options out there right now are actually quite good.

The honest truth is that all three of these districts are in the top 25 in Texas. You are not making a bad choice with any of them. You are making tradeoffs between rankings, price point, commute, lifestyle, and tax rate — and those are real estate decisions that happen to involve school districts, not just school district decisions that happen to involve houses.

At Neuhaus Realty Group, we work with families navigating exactly this decision every week. The conversation usually starts with schools and ends up being about which neighborhood matches how you actually want to live. Both things matter.

Ready to Find a Home in the Right District?

School district decisions and home searches are tightly connected in the Hill Country. You really cannot do one without the other. If you are sorting through Eanes vs Lake Travis ISD vs Dripping Springs, or trying to figure out which specific community within a district makes sense for your family, that is exactly the kind of conversation I have every week.

Reach out to me directly — I have a kid in Lake Travis ISD, I know the neighborhoods across all three districts, and I am happy to walk through the real tradeoffs with you before you start making offers.

You can also browse current listings by area: Westlake homes for sale (Eanes ISD) | Bee Cave homes for sale (Lake Travis ISD) | Lakeway homes for sale (Lake Travis ISD) | Dripping Springs homes for sale