Also Non-American, but my understanding is that they pretty much mandate front lawn is grass only. I remember reading something about how this is enforced more often on PoC for . . . some reason.

HOAs in America vary between "Really good" (no one talks about these) and "authoritarian hell hole" (there's a lot of talk about these).

One of the very worst examples I've seen was an HOA that required you to grow a single species of grass on almost every square foot of your land (As bad as, If you have a tree, that means you can't have bushes across the whole front of your house), cut it to stay very short, and keep it green. That species of grass browns when there's a drought. It browns more easily when it's cut short. The area this HOA was in is prone to droughts. Watering your lawn in a drought is illegal.

The HOA would give people fines for not breaking the law.

It's much worse than that. Only a select few plants are allowed to be planted. No outdoor accessories unless they're pre-approved by the HOA, paint and carpentry must conform to HOA standards. Any visible deviation can be punished with hundreds or thousands of dollars for each day they are present. The original idea of HOAs was a covenant meant to maintain high property values but in truth they're a scam ran by some petty tyrants and their cronies.