I had the issue where after updating the SDK it would only update to version 20 and kept telling me that ANDROID 4.1 (API16) was available and only part of ANDROID 4.2 (API17) was available and there was no update to version 21.
After restarting several times and digging I found (was not obvious to me) going to the SDK Manager and going to FILE -> RELOAD solved the problem. Immediately the other uninstalled parts of API17 were there and I was able to update the SDK. Once updated to 4.2 then I could re-update to version 21 and voila.
Good luck! David