Even as they are competing against charter schools and other options, Massachusetts school districts are increasingly embracing another form of choice.

Now, 149 of the state's 328 school systems open their doors to students from other cities and towns. They woo the students with promises of safer schools, full-day kindergarten, and perhaps a better shot at making the basketball team.

Only 32 school districts participated in 1991, after a law passed that allowed the transfers.

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The law's aim was to improve education by forcing competition, and to appease those pushing for more freedom to choose schools.

Under the law, students may enroll in another school system, space permitting, and the sending district must pay a percentage of the cost to educate those students. This can amount to $5,000 per student.

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Though the number of districts accepting transfers is increasing, more than half of the systems, including Boston and Worcester, still reject the idea; school committees are required to vote each year to refuse the transfers. Some school leaders say they have no room; others say they don't want to increase competition for slots in classrooms that are relatively roomy today but that could be more crowded in the future.

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Other school officials say that if they are expected to accept students from other districts, they should be paid the full cost of educating students, like the independently run charter schools created by law in 1993. The $5,000 cap put into the 1991 law, along with extra expenses if a student needs special education classes, amounts to less than the state's average per-pupil cost. Other school officials voice concern that the school choice program puts urban schools at a disadvantage, because they have greater poverty and more challenges than suburban schools, and that this could lead to higher concentrations of minority students in certain districts.

''It destroys support for community schools," Joseph O'Sullivan, president of the Brockton Education Association, said of the public school-choice option. ''It's every man for himself."

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Statewide, the number of transfers has gone from 920 students the first year to more than 9,200 in the past school year.

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Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School in Haverhill was one of the early users of the state law on transfers; it began accepting out-of-town students in 1992, and in open houses and through word of mouth, it began boasting about its college-preparatory programs and its security cameras. As an incentive, Whittier pays for a school bus to pick the transfer students up.

The effort has worked: Last year, 250 students transferred, bringing in almost $1.3 million in tuition.

To attract new students as well as keep its own, Greater Lawrence Technical School has eliminated low-level classes such as pre-algebra, toughened its graduation requirements; and added biotechnology and telecommunications programs. The high school also is finishing a $51 million renovation to attract more students and to compete with public and private schools. Greater Lawrence's superintendent, Frank Vacirca, has been promoting the changes in a weekly radio show aired during the school year.

''If Harvard were losing students to Stanford or Duke, and it was because of programs and personnel or facilities, do you think the Board of Trustees would embark on a capital campaign? " Vacirca said. ''This country is built on competition."

Like the charter school movement, competition among regular school districts is supposed to improve learning for all students, as well as offer them more choices. But Paul Reville, executive director of Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, said it is unclear whether the competition has made a difference educationally.

''The question is: Is this tension worth it for children?" Reville said. ''I think the jury's still out on this."

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