distutils: How to pass a user defined parameter to setup.py?

As Setuptools/Distuils are horribly documented, I had problems finding the answer to this myself. But eventually I stumbled across this example. Also, this similar question was helpful. Basically, a custom command with an option would look like:

from distutils.core import setup, Command

class InstallCommand(Command):
    description = "Installs the foo."
    user_options = [
        ('foo=', None, 'Specify the foo to bar.'),
    ]
    def initialize_options(self):
        self.foo = None
    def finalize_options(self):
        assert self.foo in (None, 'myFoo', 'myFoo2'), 'Invalid foo!'
    def run(self):
        install_all_the_things()

setup(
    ...,
    cmdclass={
        'install': InstallCommand,
    }
)