In Germany, there's a law that if a child lives more than 2 km away from school, they get a free travel pass for all types of ground transport within their region.

You just write an application to the school and that's it. Sometimes officials are willing to work with you and approve it even if you live closer. A colleague submitted an application for his son even though the school is only 1.6 km away. It went through without any problems.

Germans really love playing the game of "who can squeeze more out of the state" (from tax refunds to little perks like this) :)