North Huntsville schools are sketchy.
There are magnet schools like AAA - Academy of Arts and Academics, and ASFL - Academy for Science and Foreign Languages.
Unless you live somewhere upper middle class, like Blossomwood, etc. you're likely going to want to send your kids to private school.
Honestly, from my perspective as a transplant (I'm from B'ham), I think Madison is more promising than Huntsville. I'd hate to try to get established in H'ville nowadays.
The H'ville real estate situation is insane. I have a realtor friend that says inventory is extremely low. I just heard that the rental market in H'ville is at 97% capacity. Heres a link to back that up:
Hville hottest rental marketI know nothing of S. Tenn. It may be a good option aside from the drive. But the drive from Madison, depending on where you're headed, can be really really bad as well. Problem is, IMHO, is the infrastructure isnt up to speed with the influx.
Shopping isnt an issue, but as a fat guy I can tell you the restaurant situation is bleak. I'm familiar with places like Atlanta that have literally any genre of food you can think of and really good places to get it. You're choices in H'ville are basically Mexican, Mexican, Mexican, Chinese, Asian (Chinese), Mexican and a couple ok Italian restaurants. Yes there are outliers like Mangos (carribean food), Dolce Pan (cuban), but for the most part there'll be a Mexican place within 5 miles of where ever you live.
YMMV
[edit] couple good German places. because Hville was once populated with German rocket scientists and whatnot [/edit]