New to the new Photoshop, and I'm lost. Why is general settings menu missing in Edit?

As others have said, this is actually a long-standing difference between Windows and macOS.

For many years and versions, the difference has been…

Windows: Edit > Preferences

macOS: Photoshop > Preferences

This difference in the location is the same in other applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel.

Then, a few years ago, Apple decided to change “Preferences” to “Settings” so “System Preferences became “System Settings”. Mac applications including Photoshop followed this lead, so in Photoshop, the command Photoshop > Preferences became Photoshop > Settings, which is where you find it now. 

Google failed to tell me that the settings were at a different place on a Mac.

If that was from the AI summary at the top of the search results…always be careful with AI summaries. Especially for computer software that changes from version to version, an AI summary can often make wrong guesses or miss important context. Verify the information by following the links to read the source articles that AI took information from.

​@SSL-ADT Maybe your Photoshop preferences are corrupted and just needs to be reset? There are a few different ways. If you are non-technical, you can go into the preferences, Command K (Mac) or Control K (PC) - A button says ‘Reset Preferences on Quit’, click on that and  say Ok. What it does it resets your Photoshops, clearing any custom workspaces, buttons, actions to it’s default settings

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/desktop/get-started/settings-and-preferences/reset-preferences.html