Plans to send primary school children to their nearest secondary have been agreed by Cardiff Council.
There had been a proposal to give pupils at feeder schools priority access but this has been dropped.
However, 79% of more than 1,000 people who took part in a council consultation are in favour of a feeder system.
The council’s cabinet member for education, Sarah Merry, defended the decision and said feeder schools would not be “beneficial” city-wide.
Ms Berry said: “We need to ensure that any new system introduced to allocate places at oversubscribed schools is appropriate for the whole of Cardiff, not just a few areas.
“After evaluating the responses to the consultation, it is clear that introducing feeder schools would have a negative impact on pupils in a number of areas of the city. There is insufficient evidence that introducing feeder primary schools would be beneficial city-wide.
“We have thought long and hard about whether or not to introduce feeder schools. While there are merits to the system for some areas, we cannot introduce something that would be detrimental to the children living across the city.”
But mum Sophie Ayling, from Roath, said: “We will be protesting but we’ll also be looking to forge links with other community schools to find out their views.
“We do feel this will affect pupils across the whole city. We’d like the council to reconsider the feeder school system.”
Another mum Shavanah Taj tweeted she was “disappointed” and felt the council had “failed to listen” to parents.
The changes will be introduced at the end of this year, when school applications open for September 2019 places.
