Many college coaches cultivate and enjoy club, country or high school connections/pipelines. For instance, ambitious (smart) club and high school coaches actively promote and make calls on behalf of their top kids. There is also an exceedingly active grapevine; i.e., what do you think college assistant coaches talk about?
This is NOT to say that coaches don't randomly stumble over kids. But that generally happens because they're at a match specifically to watch another kid.
In soccer, because most recruiting budgets are limited, kids do most of the heavy lifting, in terms of initial contacts and selling themselves. If you're worried about where your kid should play, select the best training environment that also offers reasonably elite competition (i.e., not high school).
The college coaches know which clubs do the best job in those areas.
