A student asked me recently about the kind of driving school I went to in the U.S. Wow--that brought back memories!
When I was 15, I attended the driving classes that were taught at my high school. It was a looooong time ago, so my memory is foggy (曇ってる), but I think these classes were held during summer vacation. The classes were held in the school library because it had air conditioning, and Texas summers are VERY hot. (The regular classrooms didn't have air conditioning in those days.) The teacher was one of our school's history teachers and football coaches. The price of the driving course was $60.
We studied traffic laws and rules. There was a driving simulator that we could use to practice driving. There was a big screen in front, and we turned the steering wheel and stepped on the gas (アクセル) and the brake pedal to control the "car"--like a TV game.
The next step was to drive with the football coach around the school campus. It was a wide street with almost no other cars. We could practice stopping at the stop signs, and looking both ways, using our blinkers (ウインカー), etc. It was a special kind of car, especially for driving lessons. There was a brake pedal on the passenger side (助手席) of the car too, so the football coach could stop the car in an emergency.
(I remember that he had to use that emergency brake once when I was driving. I don't remember what the situation was, but I remember that his face looked scared! 
) He was a young, handsome coach, so we girls didn't mind coming to school for driving lessons.
After we finished the course, we took a driving test at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). At that time, the test cost $5. At the age of 15, I could get my learner's permit. That is a special license that means you can only drive if there is a licensed driver in the passenger seat (助手席). So I could practice legally with my parents. When I turned 16, I could get my real driver's license. Yay!
I lived in the countryside, far away from the school. We had school buses, but they were very crowded. As soon as we got our driver's licenses, we high school students would drive to school. At my high school, there were two large parking lots (駐車場) for students, and a smaller parking lot for the teachers.
How did I get my first car?
My father built a roof over the trailer house (sometimes called "mobile home") that my grandmother lived in. Texas is very hot in the summer, so my father built a roof over her trailer to keep it cooler in summer. My grandmother repaid the favor (お返し）by giving him her car for me to use. Yay! No more school bus! Thank you, Dad! Thank you, Grandma!
This is the kind of car I had, except mine was very old! (I found this photo on the internet.)
I will write more about the car that my grandmother gave me another day.
And this is me in high school. I lived in a very small town with only one high school. We had a small newspaper in our town. We all had our photos in the newspapers from time to time because there wasn't a lot of news to report on. This photo was in the newspaper for some kind of contest I participated in for my school. The newspaper gave me the original photo, so I have it in my photo album. This is about the age when I started driving to school (16).
This photo was taken outside my high school. As you can see, we didn't have school uniforms. (Now I can't imagine my children wearing these sandals to Japanese high school!)