How to access a type defined in another schema when the only sub-element is ##any

Question

I am creating a schema where the root element is defined in schema1.xsd. The definition of this element has a sub-element of 'ID', followed by this:

<xsd:any namespace="##other" processContents="lax" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>

I need to access an element defined in schema2.xsd. How do I do this?

Originally, I tried extending the root element and added the element from schema2.xsd. This was fine "schema-wise", but caused an InvalidOperationException because the reference to schema1.xsd wasn't expected (i.e., incoming transaction has and the extended schema just had with an extension listed below). The rest of the elements are defined in various schemas and work fine.

That's when I changed the schema to make the root element the 'type defined in schema1.xsd' and now I'm stuck with the "any" dilemna.