Local government, almost entirely: schools take the largest share in most of the country, and the rest funds the county, the city or town, and special districts for fire, libraries, water, parks and flood control, each of which levies its own rate against the same parcel.
One envelope arrives from the county treasurer, which makes property tax look like a single tax paid to a single government. It is not. It is several separate levies, imposed by several bodies that do not answer to each other, collected together for convenience and then split back out.
That structure explains most of what is confusing about a tax bill: why the total moved when nobody announced a tax increase, why two houses a mile apart pay different rates, and why nobody at the county can tell you where your money went in one sentence. General information, not tax advice.
One bill, several governments
The bodies on a residential tax bill are usually some subset of these: the state, the county, a city or town if the parcel is inside one, the school district, and special districts. Special districts are the ones people have never heard of and often fund the services they use most: fire protection, libraries, water and sewer, flood control, parks and recreation, sometimes a hospital district or a transit authority, and in a newer subdivision an improvement district repaying the bonds that paid for the streets and pipes.
Schools are the largest line in most of the country. That is a policy choice made a long time ago and it is why school funding and property values are entangled everywhere, and why school district boundaries appear on tax maps at all.
The split is not decided, it is the sum of the rates
Nobody sits down and divides your payment. Each taxing entity sets its own rate through its own budget process, those rates are added together into a combined rate for the tax district your parcel sits in, and the treasurer collects the total and distributes each entity's share. The split you see on the back of the bill is the result of that addition, not a decision made about you.
This is why the bill can rise when no single body raised anything dramatic, and why the parcel across a city line pays a different combined rate for houses that look identical. It is also where the leverage is if you want the total to be different: the rates are set in public meetings by elected bodies, on a calendar, months before the bill.
Nevada's arithmetic, marked as Nevada
Nevada expresses a rate per $100 of assessed value rather than as a percentage, which is the first thing to translate. A combined rate of $3.00 means $3.00 of tax for every $100 of assessed value, or 3 percent of assessed value.
Assessed value is 35 percent of the taxable value the county assessor sets, and that taxable value is not the sale price: land is valued separately, and the structure is carried at replacement cost less depreciation for its age. Run both steps and the effective rate against market price lands well below 1 percent for most homes in the valley.
The combined rate itself is a stack. State, county, city or unincorporated township, the Clark County School District, and whichever fire, library and improvement districts overlap the parcel, each contributing its own piece. Nevada caps the combined rate statutorily, and districts across the valley run below that cap by different amounts, which is the whole reason two addresses a few miles apart pay different rates on the same assessed value. The assessor's parcel page names the tax district and prints the rate applied to it, and the property tax guide works the arithmetic through end to end.
What property tax does not pay for
It is worth being clear about the boundary, because the assumption behind a lot of complaints is wrong. Property tax is local, so it funds almost nothing federal: not the military, not Social Security or Medicare, not federal highways beyond a local match. State government is mostly funded from other sources, which in Nevada means sales tax, gaming tax, live entertainment tax and room tax rather than income tax.
Homeowners association dues are not property tax either, though they arrive in the same season and cover overlapping-sounding things. Dues fund the association's own streets, gates, landscaping and amenities under its governing documents, and a special assessment from an association is a private charge, not a public one. A parcel inside an association pays both.
Reading your own bill
The bill or the treasurer's parcel page lists each taxing entity, the rate it levied and the dollars it received. That list is the answer to this question for your specific address, and it takes about a minute to read once you know it is there.
Two things are worth doing with it. Add up the rates and confirm they equal the combined rate applied, which catches the rare error. Then look at the entities you did not know existed, because those are usually the ones whose budgets are decided in a meeting almost nobody attends.
Questions people ask
What percentage of property tax goes to schools?
It varies by district and there is no national figure, but schools are the largest single recipient in most of the country and commonly take somewhere near half of a residential bill. Your own bill lists the school district's rate and its share in dollars.
Does property tax pay for roads?
Local streets, often yes, through the county or city share. State highways are usually funded from fuel taxes and vehicle fees instead, and interstate highways largely from federal sources, so the road outside your house and the freeway you take to work are paid for differently.
Why did my bill go up when the rate did not change?
Because the bill is a rate applied to a value, and the value is reset by the assessor each year. A rising assessed value raises the bill on an unchanged rate, which is the most common shape of an increase.