Photography

For your price point, used market is definitely the way to go.

A lot of the older Lumix compacts are quite good and have an interchangeable lens mount, like the GX800/GX850/GF9, but the prices of those will vary depending on where you live. Many of the Sony bodies can be had for quite cheap too, and those have a vast ecosystem to good third-party lenses, like the A6x00 series (A6000, 6100, 6300, 6400, etc.)

Interchangeable lens cameras should be preferred for an equally priced fixed lens option, as you get a lot more versatility!

the pictures don't have to be as good as a Galaxy S25, but still ideally decent quality as I said.

Don't worry, any dedicated camera will have better photo quality than a smartphone due to simply having a MUCH larger sensor, and you will also get the versatility of interchangeable lenses or, for fixed lens cameras, optical zoom.

I don't know anything about photography. Just want to point and shoot, the same way I use my Samsung Galaxy phone currently

I would suggest setting whatever camera you get into "aperture priority" mode, as then you can adjust depth of field (how much of the background becomes blurred, particularly useful for longer focal lengths), but you don't need to worry as much about shutter speed and ISO. It's what I use, and whenever it's a bit overexposed or underexposed, you can always use the exposure adjustment.