They do not need to match. It has nothing to do with the version of nixpkgs/NixOS/home-manager you install, whatsoever. It’s just state being kept in your configuration file, and the state of NixOS and home-manager is independent.
What it is ultimately used for is somewhat nebulous and inconsistent, but it’s mostly there to ensure that backwards compatibility is kept for you even as you upgrade software. You should never edit it, see this thread. Don’t fall for the newbie trap.
Don’t install 24.11, neither of home-manager nor NixOS, the software is very outdated and very vulnerable.