ASP.NET MVC 3, sections and multiple layout levels

You could put a _ViewStart.cshtml file inside the /Views/Public folder which would override the default one in the /Views folder and specify the desired layout:

@{
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_PublicLayout.cshtml";
}

By analogy you could put another _ViewStart.cshtml file inside the /Views/Staff folder with:

@{
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_StaffLayout.cshtml";
}

You could also specify which layout should be used when returning a view inside a controller action but that's per action:

return View("Index", "~/Views/Shared/_StaffLayout.cshtml", someViewModel);

Yet another possibility is a custom action filter which would override the layout. As you can see many possibilities to achieve this. Up to you to choose which one fits best in your scenario.

UPDATE:

As requested in the comments section here's an example of an action filter which would choose a master page:

public class LayoutInjecterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
    private readonly string _masterName;
    public LayoutInjecterAttribute(string masterName)
    {
        _masterName = masterName;
    }

    public override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext)
    {
        base.OnActionExecuted(filterContext);
        var result = filterContext.Result as ViewResult;
        if (result != null)
        {
            result.MasterName = _masterName;
        }
    }
}

and then decorate a controller or an action with this custom attribute specifying the layout you want:

[LayoutInjecter("_PublicLayout")]
public ActionResult Index()
{
    return View();
}

You don't use a file input control. Server side controls are not used in ASP.NET MVC. Checkout the following blog post which illustrates how to achieve this in ASP.NET MVC.

So you would start by creating an HTML form which would contain a file input:

@using (Html.BeginForm("Index", "Home", FormMethod.Post, new { enctype = "multipart/form-data" }))
{
    <input type="file" name="file" />
    <input type="submit" value="OK" />
}

and then you would have a controller to handle the upload:

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    // This action renders the form
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        return View();
    }

    // This action handles the form POST and the upload
    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult Index(HttpPostedFileBase file)
    {
        // Verify that the user selected a file
        if (file != null && file.ContentLength > 0) 
        {
            // extract only the filename
            var fileName = Path.GetFileName(file.FileName);
            // store the file inside ~/App_Data/uploads folder
            var path = Path.Combine(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/uploads"), fileName);
            file.SaveAs(path);
        }
        // redirect back to the index action to show the form once again
        return RedirectToAction("Index");        
    }
}