The district serves K–8 students in the northeast portion of the city of Oxnard and the unincorporated communities of El Rio and Nyeland Acres.
Rio feeds into the Oxnard Union High School District, specifically Rio Mesa and Pacifica high schools.
The Rio School District was founded in 1885 with the opening of a one-room schoolhouse on a ranch in what is now El Rio.
[2] In 2018, the district purchased a new headquarters building on Solar Drive in northeast Oxnard.
The office space is shared with the Oxnard Union High School District, who relocated from their previous facilities on K Street in the flight path of Oxnard Airport.