The analytical expressions for the average intensity, root mean square (RMS) beam width and angular spread of Gaussian Schell-model (GSM) beams propagating under slant atmospheric turbulence are derived, and they are used to study the influence of different propagation paths on the propagation of laser beams in atmospheric turbulence. It is shown that under the same condition, the influence of atmospheric turbulence along a downlink path on the GSM beam propagation is the smallest among the three paths. Therefore, the downlink propagation is more beneficial to the beam propagation through atmospheric turbulence compared with the uplink propagation and horizontal propagation.