[2025 Day 2 (Part 1)] [Python] What could be the cause of low result?

I'm new to python and this is my first AOC, so if there are any libraries that I should check out/resources, please let me know. My answer is too low. I know that my attempt isn't the most efficient, but I cannot figure out what to do. I'm not sure if it's because my solution is so slow, maybe there's an issue with how I check the numbers. Please give me hints and tips.

#find dash index
dash = 0
def find_ranges(range_list):
    dash = range_list.index('-')

    # use dash to get starting num and ending num
    start = range_list[:dash]
    end = range_list[dash+1:]

    return start, end

def compare_strings(start,end):
    count = 0
    for k in range(int(start), int(end)+1):
        #print(k)

         #turn into string
        number_string = str(k)
        #if string length is odd go to next number
        if len(number_string) %2 != 0:
            #print(f'{stg}not even')
            continue
        #split in half
        length = len(number_string) // 2
        #print(length)
        #compare halves
        #print(f'number is: {stg} first half:{stg[:length]} second half: {stg[length:]}')

        if number_string[:length] == number_string[length:]:
            count += 1
            #print(f'number is: {number_string} first half:{number_string[:length]} second half: {number_string[length:]}')
            #print(f'{number_string[:length]} equals {number_string[length:]}')
    return count

res = 0
for i in range(0, len(ranges)):


    range_pair = find_ranges(ranges[i])
    print(range_pair)
    res += compare_strings(range_pair[0],range_pair[1])

print(res)