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kube-system | on: USPS now offers official ZIP Code boundary polygons
> how postcodes are supposed to work

Not sure under what basis you think they are "supposed" to be a certain way but postal codes originated as a signifiers of areas, even in the UK.

US postal codes absolutely have overlap in area, because they do not divide land, they direct delivery routing.

russdill | parent
Different places have things like postal codes that mean different things, but in the US postal codes are tied to mail delivery routes.

https://web.archive.org/web/20030119031055/http://users.rcn....

kube-system | root | parent
Yes, I know that is the current way they work (...and I said it in my comment?)

My point is that postal codes aren't "supposed" to work any particular way. They work in what ever way they are specified to work at any particular point in time in any particular place.

Zip codes in the US are related to delivery routes. Prior postal codes in the US were not. UK post codes are currently hyperspecific to a single location. Previously they were not.

russdill | root | parent
In the US they were always tied to routes. The first number gives a set of distribution centers, and the second two numbers where specifically to go. If you look at a map of the first number, you'll see sharp lines separating the states. It'd be hard to verify historically, but if you look at zip codes near the border for, say, 89439, several addresses on the California side use the 89439 zip code.

It'd find it difficult to believe that when the system was originally created, mail delivered by a Nevada post office to a physical location in California had a zip code starting with a 9 rather than an 8.

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