Yeah, I tend to agree. Australia has 3 people per km^2 vs the US 35 per km^2, in approximately the same area.

It does have schools that far away from farms but it's fairly rare in the main rural regions with towns every 50km apart at most, and in the real outback where you have cattle stations the size of Belgium they use School of the Air. It's not that hard, you just have to have good planning.

edit: We do have some urban school buses, of course, but they're run by the state and staffed by public employees, and a good chunk of kids take standard services for free. The idea a city could be "out of drivers" is absurd.