They really like rules and regulations there. More is better. Notably, the whole concept of a high school lottery is culturally alien to most of the country. Let alone a lottery with a 1000-page rule book and court cases.
Why taint? The judge gave good reasons for disallowing trading. In particular; if students know they can trade places later, they'll pile onto the most popular schools (rather than their true preference) knowing that if successful they can easily trade their place for another one (including their preferred school which may not have selected them). Add to this the possibility of paid trades, I think it's great they're keeping it fair and simple.
Furthermore, the AMS lottery systems is precisely a regulation that is far from pointless. This article explains it very well.
The only thing this has done is raise my estimations of the public servants in Amsterdam.
The main difference with Amsterdam is primarily the size of the city: greater size makes for more schools and greater variability between them. Greater variability creates a differential in desirability, thus creating the problem of allocation... to which they have devised a very Dutch solution.