行かせる means "send" rather than "make someone go" - Make someone go I saw this sentence, "" and it seems to translate to "Please **send** your child to a public school" instead of "please make your child go to a public school". The question is, why does the causative form of translates to "send" instead of "make someone go"

You can take this as the causative or imperative form, but the context determines which. It is a bit complicated.

According to :

>

: "Please make your child go to a public school"

Your son might want to go to a private school for some reason. In this case, you can't allow him to go there. So, you might be asking the teacher to persuade him to go to a public school.

* * *

In another scenario,

> **** ****

It is asking someone for a permission to do something (If the situation were special, it might be making allowance to do something.).

So, means _"Please let my son choose to go / allow my son to go to a public school"_ In this case, the teacher might be stopping your son from going to a public school.