A few general comments about verbs whose readings can only be determined by context.

First, let’s look at 開く, which can be either aku or hiraku (we will leave out hadaku to simplify things.) When functioning as an intransitive, aku is used if something that had been preventing the opening is removed and passage then becomes possible. Hiraku is used when something that is closed is opened (and usually left open.) The most common occurrences of hiraku as an intransitive involve windows or dialogue boxes on computers, flowers, events, and gaps. Curtains and doors can aku or hiraku.

Next is 注ぐ, which (when used as a transitive verb) can be read either as sosogu or tsugu. This will be read as sosogu in most contexts, with one important exception: when liquid is poured into a small container (eg, cup) in order to be drunk. It that case, tsugu is supposedly the appropriate reading, though many native speakers will still read it as sosogu.

We also have 避ける, which can be read as sakeru or yokeru. Although both mean “to avoid,” the former involves avoiding abstract things and things that one holds a strong dislike for; the latter, on the other hand, often implies a physical response — ducking, swerving, etc. Consider this example:

お互い、生い立ちや歳のことも、避けていた訳ではなくてただ話題に上がらなかった。

金原ひとみ「蛇にピアス」

Since their childhoods and their ages are abstractions, this would be read sakete.

Finally, 退く, which (when used as an intransitive verb) can be read as shirizoku, doku, noku, or hiku (in classical Japanese, as always, there are even more possibilities.) To begin with, these verbs can be grouped: shirizoku and hiku both mean to withdraw; doku and noku both mean to get out of someone’s way. Within the former group, shirizoku is the most common reading when this kanji is used; within the latter group, the difference today seems mainly a matter of regional dialect. Given this, how would we read:

それ以上、押し問答するのもみっともないので、女は「じゃあ」と言ってあっさり退いた。

小池真理子「捨てる」

As we know from context that the woman does not subsequently get out of the man’s way, but that she is retreating, abstractly, from a certain line of questioning, presumably the reading would be shirizoku.