Howard. You are right ; it’s not just the money. It is about the mentality of the fact that white, privileged people in America want to keep their kids privileged. The implication is black and brown folks are inherently inferior. Dangerous. That is the core or racist folks.
So if they are rich enough they put them in private schools, especially in the Deep South. Or they make it nearly impossible to cross district lines ( Millikan v Bradley) to attend schools with far better funding and far fewer ‘troubled kids’ ( their view not mine).
Or as in other cities they set up other barriers to keep the status quo. That is what Jonathan Kozol has been writing about. For 20+ years. .

I taught at a public school from 1977 to 2010. It was a blue collar school with many races and many languages here in Sa Diego…a Navy town. However, my lessons on discrimination are probably not repeated by the new generation of teachers who either don’t know them or are intimidated to not teach them ( because they would be ‘woke’) and I am telling you that is actively happening.