Well, technically, if you aren't a permanent resident elsewhere, you're supposed to keep a "permanent address" in your country of origin or residence, at least in many countries. Since you'd still have to file for taxes and such, I suppose you could use a family's address for that.

I've definitely been in that situation before, living in the US, where I'm not from, my family living out of Mexico, and only extended family in Mexico. According to AZ state law, I could be simultaneously considered a resident and not a resident (out of state/country student), so my mailing address was a relative's house in Mexico. I have never tried to get the Matricula Consular, maybe I should, in case I ever have to prove to Mexico that I did indeed live abroad, but considering that so far it's taken me 4 years to try to get a document that I'm required by law to get (it was supposed to be a 1.5 year process).

But my guess is that expats are, by far, a minority that does not justify the effort and expense of creating rules, documents, etc, and it would lead to a lot more confusion when it came to getting an actual US license, given that DMVs seem to have little understanding on how things work when seeing a non-standard case (eg. moving between 2 states, or something like that). One of the things is that if you drive on a local license where you live (probably required or encouraged), there would be no record of what you do in other countries, so for all it matters your license could have been suspended 5x and you could still drive in the US. While that's also the case if you have a state DL, I suppose there would be less of a fuss because the state does not necessarily know for sure if you drove elsewhere.

On a sidenote, I never used my Mexican DL in Mexico except when I got it. Due to the current situation with the cartels, I keep my Mex DL at home and use the Arizona one, and since I *technically* never lived in Mexico after I turned 15, so there was no way for me to *legally* get a license there, or even a requirement, so this is also how you can play with technicalities in your favor.