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The method for utilizing nginx to allocate requests among containers is by configuring an nginx load balancer. The load balancer directs incoming traffic to multiple instances of the application running in different containers.

To implement this, you would need to configure the nginx server to act as a reverse proxy and distribute incoming requests to the appropriate container. This can be done by defining a set of upstream servers, which represent the backend containers, and using various load balancing algorithms to distribute traffic among them.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Configure the upstream servers by specifying the IP addresses and ports of the backend containers.
2. Define a server block to listen for incoming requests and act as a reverse proxy by setting the proxy_pass directive to the upstream servers.
3. Set up the load balancing algorithm by choosing from a variety of options, such as round-robin or weighted load balancing.
4. Configure any additional settings, such as health checks or SSL termination.

Once the configuration is complete, nginx will forward incoming requests to the appropriate container based on the load balancing algorithm you've chosen, ensuring a scalable and fault-tolerant application.