Boston beat domestic competition from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington DC to be put forward.
"Our goal is to host Olympic and Paralympic Games that are innovative, walkable and hospitable to all," said Boston mayor Marty Walsh.
The deadline for cities to apply to host the Games is 15 September.
The International Olympic Committee are due to make a decision in 2017.
The last time the USA hosted a summer games was in Atlanta in 1996, although Salt Lake City, Utah, hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002.
"I very much want to bring the games to the United States to share the incredible spirit of the games with another generation of Americans, and advance the Olympic and Paralympic movements," said American IOC executive board member Anita DeFrantz.
The US is the third country after Germany and Italy to officially launch a bidding process.
At an IOC meeting in Monaco in December, a 40-point action plan was voted on to revamp the sporting showpiece.
Potential hosts will find it easier and cheaper to bid under the "Olympic Agenda 2020" reforms and events can be held outside the host country or city.
The 28-sport cap for future summer Olympics has been removed - although there will be no changes to the Rio 2016 schedule.
Instead of a 28-sport limit, each summer Games will be restricted to 10,500 athletes and 310 events.

Defence barrister Stephen Vullo made the announcement to the jury at Southwark Crown Court in London.
The entertainer denies four charges relating to alleged assaults on three teenage girls between 1971 and 1983.
Mr Harris, 87, was released from prison on Friday and is now appearing in the dock in person, having appeared via a video link in the trial's first week.
Kenneth Jeacle, Mr Harris's former tour manager, told the court via video link from Australia he had seen parents encourage their children to "perhaps sit on his knee or perhaps give him a kiss on the cheek".
But he said that Mr Harris was never the "instigator" of such behaviour.
Mr Jeacle, who worked with the defendant from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, said: "Mr Harris's attitude in these incidents was always that people would approach him.
"He would then perhaps open his arms and embrace them but in, shall I say, a fraternal or brotherly style or manner."
Mr Vullo asked him whether he had ever seen Harris act inappropriately with his fans, and Mr Jeacle replied: "Categorically, never.
"Mr Harris was, in my presence, constantly respectful of children and parents alike."
Mr Harris is accused of groping a 14-year-old girl during a music event at the Lyceum Theatre in London in 1971.
Two further charges relate to alleged indecent assaults on a teenager in 1978, during filming for ITV celebrity show Star Games.
The fourth relates to a 13-year-old girl who claims he touched her breast after filming BBC children's TV programme Saturday Superstore in 1983.
Second defence lawyer David Patience read to the jury statements from people who attended the events.
They included those who denied seeing or hearing anybody upset or anything of concern taking place.
One was from ex-EastEnders and Coronation Street actress Rula Lenska, who was at Star Games.
She said: "I can say, hand on heart, I never witnessed anything untoward or suspicious."
Another woman, who was five when she attended the It's a Knockout-style event in 1978, said the "incredibly sweet" Mr Harris sat down next to her on a bench and gave her a cartoon.
Statements from two boys who attended the filming of Saturday Superstore recalled him being a "very nice fella" and a "perfect gentleman" respectively.
The trial continues.

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