Splitting schema.org Microdata over multiple divs or elements - html

Question

The basic Microdata should be something like:
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<a itemprop="url" href="url"><div itemprop="name"><strong>name</strong></div>
</a>
<div itemprop="description">My Description</div>
<div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="streetAddress">My Address</span><br>
<span itemprop="addressLocality">My City</span><br>
<span itemprop="postalCode">My Zip</span><br>
<span itemprop="addressCountry">My Country</span><br>
</div>
</div>
But can I "split" the itemscope along the page?
Giving an extreme example - Say I have the name at the header of a page, the address in the middle of the page, and the country at the footer.
Would it still be a valid / effective to split the data in such a way? or do I always need to use a cluster.
And if a split is valid, how exactly to perform it?
Do I just need to repeat the divs like :
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<div itemprop="name"><strong>name</strong></div>
</a>
<div itemprop="description">My Description</div>
</div>
And …
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<span itemprop="streetAddress">My Address</span><br>
</div>
And …
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<span itemprop="country">My Country</span><br>
</div>
This is my first time considering the use of Microdata - and I just want to make sure that I do it correctly - and I could not see any references to such a "split".
And on the same topic, can I use already existing elements, while adding only the itemscope?
For example:
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<h1><div id = "title" class="title" itemprop="name"><strong>name</strong></div></h1>
</a>

Answer 1

The easiest is to have everything in the same hierarchical tree. But you can split things using itemref. See this example from the same document you linked to:
In the following example, the "a" property has the values "1" and "2", in that order, but whether the "a" property comes before the "b" property or not is not important:
<div itemscope>
<p itemprop="a">1</p>
<p itemprop="a">2</p>
<p itemprop="b">test</p>
</div>
Thus, the following is equivalent:
<div itemscope>
<p itemprop="b">test</p>
<p itemprop="a">1</p>
<p itemprop="a">2</p>
</div>
And the following:
<div itemscope itemref="x">
<p itemprop="b">test</p>
<p itemprop="a">2</p>
</div>
<div id="x">
<p itemprop="a">1</p>
</div>

Answer 2

No, a parser will probably see what you're suggesting as 3 separate Local Business entities.
But you can have other text between the various properties in http://schema.org/LocalBusiness as follows:
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<a itemprop="url" href="url"><div itemprop="name"><strong>name</strong></div></a>
<p>
This paragraph is not used by schema.org
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</p>
<div itemprop="description">My Description</div>
</div>