My wife and I are in a position to afford* a $1.8 million single-family home. But we have two kids, and it seems like every community with (1) a strong public school system and (2) a reasonable commute to SF is out of reach of even that number, which it took us years to scrimp and save for. Where do you guys suggest we look? Is there really no hope?

Thanks in advance for your help. We've both been losing a lot of sleep over this.

*This is our absolute maximum. We would lose any bidding war that went past this.

EDIT #1: Thank you guys very much for your responses. We have only been in the Bay Area for a little under a year. But we love it and have decided to plant our roots here. Just trying to decide the best place to do it.

EDIT #2: My wife and I have spent the past year in one community which we absolutely adore. But (1) we are starting to feel like it is out of our reach and (2) it might very well be, as sadly no one has mentioned it as a viable option for us.

EDIT #3: Not super surprised that this post is being downvoted. I'm sure stuff like this annoys a lot of you and that you get a lot of this stuff here. My apologies.