Each player may only enter the lottery for one plot of land during each lotter period
It's not a perfect system either but it's 100% better than camping out for 24 hours with no sleep for months as some people do at the moment. Plus you can see the number of people applying for the plot.

The note about schedule being shared is a bit unclear, but if it'll work they way I think it would (having global reset time shared across all plots no matter when they became vacant), it will be wise to check on available plots closer to the end of current lottery window and apply for the one with less people in list. We'll see in 6.0/6.1, though, this is just speculation on my part as the explanation about schedule wasn't particularly clear.