It’s certainly a thing for owning apartments in a multi-apartment building. We call it Eigentümerversammlung and I hear they’re quite the hassle to deal with, too. Kind of hard to avoid having to have, though
For apartment buildings, yes, because you have shared private infrastructure that you need to make shared decisions about. For detached houses I don’t really get the point.
To steel man HOA’s, they take care of common property in a similar way to condos. Anything from street lights, to the sign at the front of the cul du sac, to the playground that seems oh so much nicer than what the city ever puts in. Some even provide garbage service and maintain the streets. Municipalities have been happy to offload this burden.
Steel man off: their point is to keep black people out. The superficial niceness is so white people can say how great things work for them, even when they’re only one layoff away from losing it all.