https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_St...
> The Supreme Court relies on the record assembled by lower courts for the facts of a case and deals solely with the question of how the law applies to the facts presented.
And later:
> The court grants a petition for cert only for "compelling reasons", spelled out in the court's Rule 10. Such reasons include:
> * Resolving a conflict in the interpretation of a federal law or a provision of the federal Constitution
> * Correcting an egregious departure from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings
> * Resolving an important question of federal law, or to expressly review a decision of a lower court that conflicts directly with a previous decision of the court.
Interesting.
Not only can anyone appeal all the way to the supreme court in the USA (they still have to decide to take it up however) but people can also file "cert" to have the case be skipped all the way to the supreme court to decide the "questions presented" or the supreme court can even invoke "original jurisdiction" and have the case be heard directly from the beginning (this one is a nuclear option tho so has limitations).
Of course, all the pros/cons apply with such a system.
Off to nolife wikipedia on how the european court systems work including what courts are higher than each countries courts etc.