Who should play high school sports?

It used to be that those athletes wearing a school’s uniform were also members of the community that supported and surrounded the school. But since the mid-90s, more and more students have opted to go to schools that are not in their neighborhoods for many reasons including different educational and athletic opportunities.
Students in Utah are not supposed to transfer from school to school for sports. But anyone associated with high school athletics knows they do. Some begin this process in junior high, while others transfer mid-way through their high school experience.
Now a complex situation is being made even more complicated by the growth of home school, charter, private and virtiual (on-line) schools. Some students are even earning their high school diplomas using more than one of these options.
So who should represent a high school? Who should be eligible to participate in athletics or activities at a high school? If a student chooses to attend classes on-line or at a charter school, should they then have a right to participate in sports at a traditional public high school? And finally, who should pay?
The state legislature, state office of education, as well as the UHSAA, are contemplating these issues, but underlying all of it is which body should determine eligibility. Should local school districts decide what’s required? Or should the state office of education come up with one state-wide standard?
I’m interested to hear what readers, many of whom understand this issue better than most of the decisions makers, think about these issues.