Everyone is confronted with schools and ways to school in the course of their lives, either as a student or as a parent. In Germany, the individual states regulate when transportation of a student is needed in their school laws. The decisive factor is the shortest path between the home and school locations. The presented approach utilized open geodata and open source software to demonstrate how the school distance, considering the requirements of the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, can be determined. The open geodata utilized were checked for various quality characteristics in advance and revised if necessary.