A Supreme Court ruling that a church-run preschool must be granted publicly funded tire scraps for its playground seemed on Monday to be narrowly drawn, attracting even the votes of two of the court’s liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Stephen G. Breyer.

But school choice advocates across the nation saw the decision as a game changer in the divisive debate over publicly funded vouchers for private religious schools. And their judgment seemed validated on Tuesday when the legal ramifications began to reshape education debates across the country.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sent two cases back to state courts for reconsideration in light of the ruling for Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia, Mo. One of those cases concerned a program in Colorado — ruled unconstitutional by the state’s highest court — that awarded public funds to help families cover tuition at private schools, including sectarian ones.

The Supreme Court regularly sends back pending cases for a re-airing after it renders decisions that seem legally relevant, but such a move does mean that the court believes there is a “reasonable probability” that a lower court may come to a different decision in light of its findings.