Use of 放 in 放学 to mean school? I am trying to revive my knowledge of Chinese, having learned it some years ago. I was flicking through my old text book and came across the phrase "放学回家以后，。。。"

I remember reciting this (thinking back, we did a lot of phrase learning without understanding the characters involved and the sentence structure :/) but now when I am trying to pick apart the sentence, I don't understand what the 放 is doing. According to Google translate and line dictionary etc, 放 means to 'put/put in'. However 放学 is 'school'. But what about 学校, which is also 'school'?

In a nutshell, what does 放 mean in the sentence?
放 has many meanings

放 http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/862/
[1] let go; release; set free
[2] let out; dismiss; take leave
....

学 in 放学 short for 学校 (school)
放学(school out) simply means  'be let out of school' or 'be released from school '
Examples for 放 as 'release ; let out':

放监 = be released from jail

放工 = be released from work

放假 = be released for day off; take leave for holiday