In one case the number 37 is an address that represents control over a subsection of a global network. So it is actually important that the owner of it has rights to the thing pointed at (the network, not the number 37 abstractly, but the addresses with 37 in the most significant bits are allocatable by whoever holds 37. Enforced by the smart contract and a consensus rule in the software that it supports... one could fork the software and point the consensus rule at a different smart contract, but then it would not be the same network anymore.)

If yall are buying leaf NFTs that cannot mint other NFTs, then I don't think you get to own anything other than the paper it's printed on. But that does not mean that NFTs cannot be used to own real things, or to enforce ownership of those real things (like a network, insomuch as a network is a real thing.) They can, and do.