>>12134098that's more or less how it went for us. we'd pick some sort of "focus" like science, math, or fine arts then get to make some specific choices.
for example you have to take an english and a math every year plus like 3 science classes and 3 social studies classes including US history, then random one time shit like personal finance, economics, PE etc. etc. i took a fine art focus which meant required band every year as well
in the end all the choices pretty much boiled down to do you want to take the regular, honors, or AP variant of a course. even for the science courses for example we had to take 3 and it wasn't specified which but they only offered 4 and biology was a prerequisite for chemistry so you had to take that no matter what.
similarly there were only 6 math courses and obviously they don't let you move backwards, so if you started in geometry you'd only have one option each year, that being the next class up. i cheated the system by passing precalculus then going to remedial math because i found out it was outside the prerequisite loop so it wasn't technically moving backwards so my advisor couldn't stop me