It's certainly a thing for owning apartments in a multi-apartment building. We call it EigentĂĽmerversammlung 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.
Yes it is, it's just not as crazy, but it exists everywhere.
If several houses share a private road, it will be necessary to make an agreement with all the homeowners on maintaining the road.
Similarly with privately owned apartments. If they need new windows, it's generally in everybody's interest that the entirety of homeowners agree on the colour of windows.
There are usually some sort of home owners association anywhere where homeowners own part of the common areas.
It's still possible to buy a house without one, but many new build suburban sprawl have them by default because the placement off public roads and the developers wanting to have everything look at a certain standard before the houses are sold to individuals.