Comparison Guide
Niwot and Gunbarrel look like the same house at the same price on Zillow. They're not, and the mailing address and the town name both hide the one thing that actually decides between them: the school district, which runs by parcel, not by name.
Boulder
Gunbarrel is the one Boulder-address pocket that keeps Boulder Valley (BVSD) schools while costing less: detached homes run roughly the low-$800Ks to about $1.1M vs a Boulder-city median of $1,325,000. The catch is the parcel's jurisdiction, part City of Boulder, part unincorporated county.