Incredibly, on most console versions, you can only connect to specific servers. You have to do some DNS shenanigans to connect to a custom server that reroutes you to whatever server you want. Or at least, that's how it worked a couple years ago when I last had the displeasure of dealing with Minecraft Bedrock.

So even if you bite the bullet of setting up a server with Geyser, your friends would have to be willing to mess around a fair bit to connect to it.