There are ways around it (as there are with Covid vaccine requirements), but most folks are subject to vaccine mandates for school attendance (though, sure, those are state-level rules). IIRC I had to provide vaccination records for college, too. Plenty of states require vaccination to teach in a school (so, to hold a job).

What's different about this isn't the presence of mandates, but that it was a novel virus so mandates were applied to (a small set of) adults rather than mainly to kids.

In fact, the set of people to whom Covid vaccine mandates apply is surely way smaller than the set to whom a variety of others do. I'm pretty sure most states aren't requiring Covid vaccination for school attendance, for instance.