Most places, the areas with the "10/10" public schools cost more to live in, between property taxes and higher purchase prices for houses (because the schools are good, so demand is high). They may also be farther from where the jobs are (more often than not, I'd guess), unless you want to pay even more for both prime location and good schools, assuming such a thing even exists where you live. Higher transportation costs, more time commuting.

You pay either way. Picking the nicer location is probably cheaper, but I wouldn't bet on that always being the case. It's difficult to quantify the costs of location to compare the two.