In middle and high schools, everyone had some books they had to read for school. In present day these are things like 1984, Catcher in the Rye, and Tom Sawyer. Some of these, like Tom Sawyer, I am sure have been fairly consistent books for students to read. Others like Catcher in the Rye would certainly have not been read in schools upon release. As such I am wondering if there is some kind of list of popular books to teach in middle and high schools for each decade throughout the last century or to see how the list has changed and try to ascertain why.
Due to the 10th Amendment, American education is up to each state. As the majority of states (Texas being the most notable exception) leave most curricular decisions up to local communities, it's difficult to say "everyone had some books they had to read." The exact look of English class varies between teachers, schools, districts, and states. As there's no overarching structure to American education, there's no way to make lists about a universal American English class experience.
That said, what you're describing is commonly referred to as the English literary canon or the Western canon - the poems, books, and plays considered essential to Western civilization. The American canon tilts towards American-born authors and is predominately authored by white men.
The reason why you probably read the same books in your English class as your parents (provided you went to the same high school as them) or as a friend in a nearby district is what's referred to as the "grammar of school" (Tyack and Cuban, 1995.) There are aspects of American school that have been handed down generation after generation as immovable and essential to the idea of what school is. For many, the idea of going through high school without reading Mark Twain is sacrilege. The American teaching force is overwhelming staffed by white women who were good at school; which means they often teach the books they read and enjoyed in school. Books like The Schoolma'am by Francis Donovan, published in 1938, detail the hereditary nature of English class in turn of the century teachers and it's a pattern that endures to today.
There are two additional factors that contribute to certain titles, such as Huck Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, being so familiar to so many across the country. First is a program known as "Great Books Junior" or "Junior Great Books." The program was an offshoot of Great Books, an effort by University of Chicago professors in the 1940's to bring more of the English canon to college students. They eventually started a Great Books Foundation and in 1962, launched the Junior Great Books Foundation. Multiple articles and books in the mid-60's were written by mostly white educators bemoaning a shift away from the "classics" and Junior Great Books was seen as a way to lessen what they saw as a decay. Students who joined the club (or were assigned - it was used a proxy for gifted education in some schools) would read abridged versions of identified Great Books and discuss them using set protocols, facilitated by a teacher. As the program spread across the country, teachers who facilitated the afterschool conversations brough the texts and protocols into their English class.
The second factor is likely The National Council of Teachers of English. Founded by James Fleming Hosic, it was established as a roundtable working group of English teachers and members of the National Education Association in 1911. Unlike the 1894 Committee of Ten, the working group included practicing teachers, many of whom were women. The precursor to NCTE was the National Conference, a group of university and college representatives who established the list of classics that students would need to know and be able to write about for their entrance examples. Unsurprisingly, Harvard had a key role in the creation of this list. Increasingly school leaders pushed back against the idea of colleges having say in what students in secondary school did and one of Fleming Hosic's goals was to advocate for high school curriculum written by high school teachers based on their goals for their high schoolers - not college admission criteria. The beginning of the 19th century marked the beginning of the shift away from high school as a place to prepare for college and more of a place that teenagers went. (It would take until the 1950's for high school to become an essential part of American adolescence.) The early work of NCTE helped shape what the time set aside during the day for "English" class might look like.
NCTE has held annual conferences, shared national standards, model curriculum, and sample lesson plans. They often pulled from the canon for that work and as teachers took what they learned at their conferences back to their districts, the carried on a focus on the American canon.
Krug, E. A. (1964). The Shaping of the American High School. 1880-1920. Harper & Row.
Tyack, D. B., & Cuban, L. (1995).Tinkering toward utopia. Harvard University Press.