A few Visa D questions

No issue about coming from Schiphol.
Just make sure you can show a flight ticket/train/whatever to prove you're going to Belgium to avoid too much questions at the immigration.
So yeah, write Netherlands as your entry point.

You won't have permanent resident before 5 years of stay in Belgium.
Once you arrive in Belgium, you should go to your commune (administration town hall) to declare your arrival.

Once you settle to an accommodation (rent/buying/...), the commune will ask the police to check that you live in the accommodation you've told them.
Then you can come back to the commune to get your belgian foreigner id card (resident permit) valid one year (meaning that every year you'll need to renew it).

Put 1 year as duration (validity of the visa) or N/A


Please, remember to check the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) before leaving! Your pet are defined as "exporting".
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/pet-travel

Thanks for the information. I had thought the visa D was good for five years, not a year-by-year (joys of trying to research online). Sadly it doesn't give a N/A option as it wants specific dates in day/month/year format. It has to be 365 days and a year.

In filling it out with that information and trying to submit it discovered answer to another question I had submitted to them. As I couldn't find any concrete information online as to how far in advance one could apply for a visa, I had been hoping it would be possible to get it 6 months in advance (as would be good to have a concrete answer that the visa would be accepted before one turns down a lease renewal, and starts closing down a business...)

Luckily there is one thing I know... I already checked and the cats are OK (as long as they are microchipped, have a passport and certain shots within a time limit).  Hopefully we'll have an apartment by time of the flight (was planning on flying out a couple of months in advance to knock wood get a place.  While we have temporary housing already in place, will be good to have a place to have furniture et al shipped to).