[bombcar]

This is oft repeated, though examining the small town budget (though perhaps I'm not in a "small" town at 10k residents) shows that the vast majority of the property tax goes to the schools, roads et al are a rounding error.

In a future with few or no kids, schools won't be needed.

[dpark]

I bet the set of people seeking out “small town life” are more likely to have children than the average city dweller. If so, the funding problem gets worse over time for small towns. More kids with fewer adults funding schools.

[antasvara]

The balance here is that good schools are one of the amenities that keep property values high and they have pretty high fixed costs.

So you lose some economy of scale when enrollment drops, you have to cut school funding, which makes the schools worse, which makes the town less desirable, which drops real estate prices, etc.