dynamic selected option using variables from mysql

After finally getting this to work, I thought I'd post it in case it maybe
I was having trouble working to populate a few sets of dropdown select tags.
I had researched a number of similar submissions and solutions, but I still couldn't find the answers I'd been looking for.

@Ronser had helped me to test through my queries, which lead me to learning more about how the arrays actually worked. I realised I needed to go back and to update the access column in TABLE 1 to access_id. (I should've indexed these originally).

Table 1: app_generalData
app_id,
title,
status_id,
category_id,
tags,
access_id

Table 2: app_access
access_id,
access_title

Desired result(s):
Objective 1: Show/echo the selected option (stored in app_access table)

Objective 2:
Build these queries with variables to allow for easy updating for adding new dropdowns.

Resulting HTML:

<select name="access"><option "">Global</option>\n<option " selected ">Corporate</option>\n<option "">Local Site</option>\n</select>

Code:

<?php

//connect to the database
require_once('connectvars.php');

// global variable for this populating this dropdown
$dropdown =         "access";
$before_var =       "app_";
$column1=           $before_var.$dropdown;
$after_var =        "_title";
$column2=           $dropdown.$after_var;
$id_var=            "_id";
$dropdown_table_id= $dropdown.$id_var;

$optionsList = array();

$dbc = mysqli_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_NAME)
    or die ('Error connecting to MySQL server.');

echo '<select name="' . $dropdown . '">';

// See if we're viewing a selected app or are we creating a new app
if (isset($_GET['app_id'])) {
          // print_r($_GET); // GET is Successful

  // 'if' [app_id] is appended in the url

      // STEP 1: Get the stored value of the SELECTED from mysql

          // Get "selected item" (id) from app_generalData (table) with the "selected app" (id)
          $option = "SELECT  ".$dropdown_table_id." FROM app_generalData WHERE app_id ='" . $_GET['app_id'] . "'";

          // submit the select statement
          // Get & store the value of "selected" <option>
          $selected_option = mysqli_query($dbc, $option) 
              or die(mysql_error());
          $row_1=mysqli_fetch_array($selected_option);

      // STEP 2: Build the SELECT input

          // Set the array of data to populate dropdown list <option>s
          $options = "SELECT * FROM ".$column1." ORDER BY ".$dropdown_table_id."";
                // NOTE: print_r($options)...SELECT access_title FROM app_access ORDER BY access_id
            $selected_options = mysqli_query($dbc, $options)
                or die(mysqli_error());

            $kk     = 0;   //initialize kk
           while($row_2 = mysqli_fetch_array($selected_options)) {

                $selected ='';
                if($row_1["$dropdown_table_id"]==$row_2["$dropdown_table_id"]) {
                $selected=' selected ';
                }
                $optionsList[$kk++] ='<option "' . $selected . '">' . $row_2["$column2"] . '</option>';
           }

          // Echo the <option>s
              $optionCount = count($optionsList);
              for($i=0;$i<$optionCount;$i++) {
                  echo $optionsList[$i].'\n';
              }

    }
    else {
        // Action 'if' no [app_id] is appended in the url
    };
    // close the last <select> tag
    echo '</select>';

    // close the last database
    mysqli_close($dbc); 

?>