When do you get your STAR?

[jrpilot]

When you are preparing for a descent and about 200 miles away from the airport is your lasy flight plan waypoint what would you do?...do you set up the  STAR that you expect, does atc asign you a heading or STAR, or do you continue flying the last heading of your last waypoint?

[Nexus]

There are many ways to do this, but one scenario, which is very common is this: As you approach the last waypoint before the dest. airport the ATC will say something like "Cleared to the Los Angeles airport via the Sadde Six arrival".
Now you insert the Sadde 6 arrival, but may wait to select the runway.

As you are descending into LA, SOCAL approach might issue "Proceed direct SMO. Descend and maintain 10.000, Depart SMO heading 070. Expect ILS runway two four left approach"

Now you can flip to the arrivals page and select the ILS 24L approach, and SMO transition.

clearer?