The notions of controlled truncations for operators in the Roe algebras $C^*(X)$ of a coarse space $(X, \cal{E})$ with uniformly locally finite coarse structure, and rank distributions on $(X, \cal{E})$ are introduced. It is shown that the controlled propagation operators in an ideal $I$ of $C^*(X)$ are exactly the controlled truncations of elements in $I$. It follows that the lattice of the ideals of $C^*(X)$ in which controlled propagation operators are dense is isomorphic to the lattice of all rank distributions on $(X, \cal{E})$. If $X$ is a discrete metric space with Yu's property A, then the ideal structure of the Roe algebra $C^*(X)$ is completely determined by the rank distributions on $X$.