A method for configuring an IP address to receive broadcast or multicast data flow which modifies the bind( ) Application Programming Interface (API) to survey available local interfaces to determine their ability to be configured to receive data from a particular IP address, configure a interface to receive the IP address if it is so configurable, bind the IP address to that interface. The modified bind*( ) API may interact with one or more interfaces to see if each interface is capable of being configured to the IP address. Alternatively, the modified bind*( ) API determines the configurability of interfaces by consulting the access control list. Policy based routing rules may be implemented so that the modified bind*( ) operation configures the highest priority interface based upon policy parameters.