Hi Jason,
First to answer Nicolas' question, US Census blocks are polygons, they are the 
smallest published unit of the US Census, they are designed to be roughly equal 
in population (very rough in some places), so they vary drastically in size and 
shape.
To not reinvent the wheel I would suggest that you search the literature for 
election redistricting. I think you should be very careful about trying to 
split census blocks into finer units. But some states like Maryland do have 
estimates of the number of dwelling units per parcel.
This is a recent blog post about using R for computational 
redistricting:https://www.r-bloggers.com/2021/02/some-computational-redistricting-methods-or-how-to-sniff-out-a-gerrymander-in-a-pinch/

QGIS can do K-means clustering, but you should be aware of its pitfalls, for 
example it is likely to give you zones with widely varying population, if the 
population density is not fairly 
even:https://www.r-bloggers.com/2010/10/k-means-redistricting/ 
-Thayer


   On Thursday, April 22, 2021, 12:09:15 AM EDT, 
[email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:  > 
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2021 16:29:57 -0500
> From: Jason Aleksi <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [Qgis-user] Breaking a territory into zones
> Message-ID: 
><CALN462aKOBi6SgfqEgPHs=8HjVE+W5C=l5nckti0hg_jg4t...@mail.gmail.com>> 
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Can someone point me in the right direction?  I am not sure what I should
> be searching for in reference to the task below.
> 
> I work for a non-profit organization.  Up to this point, my limited GIS
> knowledge has been focused around plotting and integrating data with qGIS.
> I am tasked with finding a way to analyze the data and build "zones" within
> a territory based on the data with a street line center file.  I have
> searched for building zones, districts, territories, heatmaps, spatial
> statistics, voting districts, etc. I found some information relating to
> ESRI Business Analyst, but that was specific to ArcMap and did not point
> me in a related direction.
> 
> Here is the data I have:
> 
>   - Centerline File from the State GIS Office
>   - US Census Block Level data from 2010
>   - Various boundary files from the State GIS Office
> 
> What I am trying to do is break an territory up into 5 zones.  Each zone
> should have an equal number of residents.  Zone borders are limited to the
> edges of the territory.  Within the territory, zone borders should follow
> the nearest street centerline.
> 
> Can anyone offer a better direction, keywords to search for, or a feature I
> should look at within qGIS?
> 
> -JA-
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