In our area we have a separate Sunday league for the All-Star games. The All-Star leagues from the surrounding areas play each other and the only costs are the umpires (each community takes turns hosting each Sunday). Now for "official" All-Star tournaments many have a requirement that you have to play in a rec league in order to play in the tournaments. Anything other than that is travel ball and the competition is much better.
So typically a girl that plays in rec (and is an All-Stars) will practice twice a week with her rec team, once a week with All-Stars, play in one (or two rec league games) and double header on Sundays for the All-Star league. Practices at this point are only an hour long.
Once rec league and All-Star league is over (about the same time) All-Star practices increase to twice a week at two hours and they play in sanctioned All-Star tournaments the rest of the summer.
Hope that helps.
I prefer when leagues have tryouts and then draft players. It keeps the league more competitive. When teams become overloaded with talent in league then the better players goof off and don't learn anything any way. Form a "B" team from league players and go to a few tournaments. The girls in league will have the prestige of being on the "select" team and they will get great experience playing with other like minded girls/athletes on the weekends.