In order to study the differences in ground motion selection schemes at home and abroad, code for seismic design of buildings (GB 50011—2010) and minimum design loads and associated criteria for buildings and other structures (ASCE/SEI 7[KG-2mm]-16) were taken as examples, and the corresponding selection results were compared. Through the conversion of design spectrum parameters, ground motion records were selected at the same seismic fortification level under two working conditions according to the methods in two codes, which were then used as dynamic time history input for 4-story and 12-story concrete frame structures to compare the story displacement angle and story shear force. Results show that the selection and amplitude scaling based on a single direction according to the Chinese seismic code may result in a low matching degree in the other direction and a large dispersion of the calculation results. The American seismic code adopts the maximum direction spectrum, which has clearer physical meaning. In addition, the Chinese code only specifies the relative error of the recorded response spectrum, while the American code specifies the lower limit of the spectrum. Although the Chinese code avoids the conservativeness of the results, it may lead to significant disparities between one or more records and the target spectrum, which may cause the dispersion of the results to be uncontrollable. Hence, it is suggested to combine the advantages of the two methods to control the relative error and the lower error limit.