Stupid Question: How to tell MAC which drive to boot from?

This may sound really stupid but coming from the Windows world....how do I get the system to boot from a different drive (if and when I get it setup :-)).
Is their an equivalent <F>Key in the Mac World?
Thx

I decided to get an external firewire drive (Maxtor) to boot my Macs in the event that I was unable to get one of the Macs to boot. I installed the Tiger OS on the Maxtor using my Powerbook G4 disk and then tried it out with the Option key pressed at startup and it booted from the Maxtor and worked great on the Powerbook. I then (using the firewire cable again) attached it to my Powermac G5 that I bought about a year ago (Dual processor, 2.3 Ghz.) and it also booted from the Maxtor just fine.
I then hooked it up to my newest Mac the exact same way (Powermac G5, Dual Core, 2.3 Ghz) and got a kernel panic. Why would that be?
Powerbook G4, PowerMac G5, Dual Core, and PowerMac G5 Dual Processor   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

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