That's more Texas-marketing than anything else. It has a lot of things that smell a lot like zoning, they just don't call it that.
Deed restrictions to a lot of the work. There are also density restrictions.The city steers where it wants things with tax policy, a big chunk of the city is governed by airport (federal) rules, and then add in historic preservation, buffering ordinances, lot size restrictions and so on, and there is little surprise Houston looks just like everywhere else in the US.
In some parts of the country - dunno about Houston specifically - a high percentage of the housing stock is governed by HOAs which make zoning boards look like anarchists by comparison.
