@renevanbelzen Version control systems, like git, are just tools to keep track of file changes over time. There's a high probability you're already doing this manually, without a tool.
Have you ever made a copy of a file before making changes? Have files named my-document-version-2.doc, nice-photo-old.jpg, or similar? Congrats, you're version-controlling already! Tools like git will make that process a lot easier (once you learn them), but they are totally optional. You don't need git for your Hugo project.
So you can safely ignore git for now, or forever, and concentrate on learning Hugo instead.
Anyway, why would I need version control for a static website?
Well, you don't. But having the complete history of a project sometimes is helpful. For example, if you remove one file by mistake or want to undo changes made in another file. With the project under version control, you can always return to an earlier state.
Or has static another meaning I'm not aware of?
In the context of a static website or static web page, it just means that the web server delivers the HTML file as is to the browser asking for it. Compared to a dynamic web page that is generated on-the-fly and might contain different content depending on who requested the page.
Having a static web page doesn't mean the content never changes. That's up to you, the author. For example, you can write a blog post, publish, and never change it again. Or maybe you fix a typo a week later. Or you may have a particular page on your site that you update daily.
I have a page on my website listing stuff I'm about to sell. It's a static HTML file, but the content has changed many times since its original publication back in August.
I should be able to upload the files to a directory on a server I rent, shouldn't I?
Yep, you can. When you run Hugo, you will end up with a directory, probably named public/, containing a bunch of HTML and other files. You can upload the content of that directory to any service able to host HTML files.
Hosting small static websites and blogs is mostly free nowadays. Netlify and Cloudflare Pages are two options that offer free tiers.