Variant + style (font / icon size) apply both to the public navbar and the admin sidebar. The position field only affects the public navbar - the admin sidebar's position is fixed by the admin shell. Footer columns ignore everything here.
[menu] and floating panels. Below 993px the navbar always falls back to the mobile drawer.
[menu] in the page body packs left unless you choose otherwise. Vertical menus and the mobile drawer ignore this.
[menu] and the admin sidebar. Any single item can override this in its own editor, under Highlighting.
A binding lets this menu take over a slot for part of the site instead of being mapped to it everywhere. Pick the slot, then say where it applies - a project, a list of page URLs, or both. On matching pages this menu replaces whatever Menu locations maps to that slot; everywhere else the mapped menu still renders. The most specific match wins: an exact page URL beats a wildcard, which beats a project.
[menu] shortcode places it.
/* matches that page and everything beneath it (/docs/*), and /* matches the whole site.