Zirconium alloy sheets exhibit limited formability at room temperature, often leading to cracking during the fabrication of spacer grids in nuclear reactors. This study presents stamping experiments conducted on Zr-4 sheets, with microstructure and texture characteristics measured at various positions along the longitudinal section using EBSD. The in-grain misorientation axes method was employed to analyze deformation mode selection. Supported by finite element method simulations, a visco-plastic self-consistent model was applied to quantify the activation of deformation modes and elucidate the relationship between texture evolution and slip/twin activity. In addition, the effects of strain paths on crack formation mechanisms were investigated. The results indicate that cracking primarily occurred around the punch radius. Positions near the punch radius followed a plane strain path, whereas regions along the slope wall and die radius exhibited a uniaxial tension path. Prismatic <a> slip was found to dominate deformation across all loading strain paths. Near the die radius, pyramidal <c + a> slip and tensile twinning were activated to accommodate stamping deformation, resulting in the formation of new texture components aligned along the rolling direction. The increase in basal texture strength around the punch radius was attributed to basal <a> slip, serving as a secondary dominant slip system. Furthermore, prismatic slip, in coordination with basal slip, facilitated the texture transition from a double-peak structure to a basal texture.