Social Media's Cringiest Conservative Is Running for School Board -- As a Democrat
(www.rollingstone.com)
As a gently raised Canadian I too was very confused.
But then the whole "registered party member", primary voting thing doesn't really exist here either. Like parties have internal democratically held meetings to figure out their best candidates... But I could technically go to and participate in every party meeting if I wanted to figure out their schedule. People just can't run for office for multiple parties in an election.
Personally I find it a little fucked up that you register your intentions and essentially choose your political circular mail during the initial voting process in the first place. It would not be out of character from this outsider's perspective if school boards in the US were a partisan affair because there's already more infrastructure to create a distinct two party supremacy down there then we of the north are used to.
Just explaining our electoral system to my American friends usually has them very jealous at the general lack of extra steps. Complaining that we still have very much have proportional representation issues to address on the Canadian side usually falls on deaf ears.