Talk to your Guidance Counselor about this. There are a lot of options.

You can apply for financial aid at the same time as applying to colleges / universities. If you are very smart and tested extremely well, the scholarship you get will cover any school you choose within reason. So you don't have to have a school picked out generally.

Athletic scholarships are completely different and I can talk at length about the do's and don'ts. Basically you are recruited, there is a lot of negotiation, and the school you end up at foots the bill in some way.

Here is a wrinkle -> Major universities recruit stellar students just like athletes too.