They didn’t, I walked home with a friend who lived nearby and hung out until my mom was done work. Could have taken the bus home, but they didn’t want me home alone at that age.

Also, it may not seem like it anymore, but we do have a Department of Education that could pretty easily come up with nationwide rules regarding bussing. They could even afford to subsidize it in areas with lower income (or, you know, not make education quality a function of an area’s wealth in the first place, and just administer it all at the federal (or even just state) level.