There is no analytic solution for $\alpha$ being a scalar (I think). Here is a script that gives you $\alpha$ for a given $K$. If you need it online you can build a LUT. The script finds the solution that minimizes
$$ \int_{0}^{\pi} dw |H_1(jw) - H_2(jw)|^2 $$$$ \int_{0}^{\pi} dw \quad \left|H_1(jw) - H_2(jw)\right|^2 $$
where $H_1$ is the FIR frequency response and $H_2$ is the IIR frequency response.
You did not really specify any range for K. But I just want to make it clear to you that the following system is equivalent to your mean filter and has the same computational complexity and your first order IIR!
$H(z) = \frac{1}{K} \frac{1 - z^{-K}}{1-z^{-1}}$
function a = find_a(K)
w = 0.0001:0.001:pi;
as = [-1:0.001:-0.001 0.001:0.001:1];
E = zeros(size(as));
for idx=1:length(as)
fJ = J(w,as(idx),K);
E(idx) = sum(fJ);
end
[Emin, indx] = min(E)
a = as(indx)
function f = J(w,a,K)
num = 2*(2-a)*(1-cos(w*K)) + 2*(cos(w*(K-1)) - cos(w)) - 2*(1-a)*(cos(w)-cos(w*(K+1)));
den = (2-a)^2 + 1 + (1-a)^2 + 2*(1-a)*cos(2*w) - 2*(2-a)^2*cos(w);
f = -(a/K)*num./den;
f = f+(1/K^2)*(1-cos(w*K))./(1-cos(w))+a^2./(1+(1-a)^2-2*(1-a)*cos(w));
end
end