The story has it as, Tail beasts were initially controlled by the First Hokage, the number one guy in Senjuu clan. Possibly the number guy ever in the ninja world. Since he actually can control all the tailed beast, 1-9.

Eventhough, he is the most powerful guy, plenty of people still fight against and for him, regardless of the geographic location.
(I cant quote the orignal chapters that talked about this, but I think it was sometime after Madara started to recruit Sasuke.)

Madara,)uchiha clan being the geographically closer clan to Konoha(which consist of the bykugan, senjuu plus other clan) somehow came to a truce and form a big communal village.

Madara, fought with First Hokage, but lost to him because of the powers of the tailed beasts.

Anyhow, trying to end the wars between the villages, the First Hokage, decided to "share" the powers that he posses, in the form of sealing the tailed beast among the big villages.

The choice of who the containers is depended on the individual village. How they vetted for the jinchuriki most likely depended upon their relationship with the most powerful person in their own village.


I think the Kyubi is the odd one out, because he does not need to be sealed in the jinchuriki, till the First Hokage bit the dust.(since he can control the Kyubi without sealing technique) Madara as it seem might have the power to control the Kyubi without sealing techinque as well.

As we also know, the sealing techniques(a forbidden technique- not to say a secret technique) since it is pretty well known. It may be a variation, but the technique used by the 4th Hokage, Naruto's father, is known to sacrifice it's caster and seals half the kyubi's chakra in Naruto.
Why the 4th Hokage choose Naruto, well at that point he was the Hokage, and persumably the 1st Hokage died already, and the Kyubi, which should not have been near the Konoha village is being attacked by it*(supposedly, Madara was the person controlling the Kyubi to attack the Konoha, out of bitterness/revenge)
Therefore the 4th Hokage, sacrificed himself, and his son, thinking that the sealing technique can also possibly provide extra chakra for his son.


Now the question is, if it was possible to seal one tailed beast in a jinchuriki, can you seal all 9 of them in one jinchuriki.*(and was that the case for the first Hokage)