

Adding to this (which is a solid recommendation and answer BTW), you can try out podman kube play <your-file>.yaml (see here) before going full k8s or k3s setup to familiarize yourself with the concepts, without moving too far away from the docker-compose ease of use.
Regarding question 1, any distro works, but if your are looking specifically for a lightweight, fast to deploy node host os, I recommend opensuse microOS/leap micro or similarly, fedora coreOS. With both you can drop a combustion/butane/ignition config file in a usb installer partition, so you can quickly integrate fresh installs in your cluster (ssh, network config, user accounts, package installs) see https://opensuse.github.io/fuel-ignition/
This isn’t really the usecase, you’d be better off just playing it with VLC from a BD/DVD drive with the menu plugins. Netflix won’t have DVD menus either. Ripping is necessary for this to make your physical copies accessible via Jellyfin. May want to check ARM (Automatic Ripping Machine) to streamline the process. Legally, this is perfectly fine in most jurisdictions, because you are creating a backup of your purchased property.