Not unlimited choice

"All the regression studies agree that the planning process is done in collaboration with the spiritual guides. The guides present the soul with options for the next life. The soul's previous actions, or karma, determine the parameters and limits of its options. Based on its past performance, the soul is offered a menu of lives that will teach it what it needs to learn next. It does not have unlimited choice. If that were the case, why would anyone choose a life of hardship or tragedy.

Even with karma limiting the options, the soul still has a mind-boggling number of lives to choose from. The coordination it requires to choose the right one is complex, a matter of balancing multidimensional factors in intricate ways. The decision must consider not only the needs of the soul, but must also coordinate its choice with the needs and plans of other souls it expects to join--particularly the parents."

Carol Bowman (2001). Return from Heaven: Beloved Relatives Reincarnated within Your Family. pp. 142-43.

I believe that there are at least two patterns, very roughly speaking: 1) events are 'predestined' to occur and there is no choice but allow them to happen; and 2) we can make a free choice from among many alternative and whatever choice we have made does not cause any disaster.  An example of the first case is death: we cannot choose/change how many years we live and how we end our lives (i.e., how we return home.) In the second case, the most typical and simplest example is what we eat for every meal.  Except for obviously unhealthy diets, we can eat whatever we like for breakfast, lunch and evening meal.