Am I misunderstanding exit nodes

I have a laptop that I take with me when I am not home and I need to have it configured as such

At home all data goes out of a VPN connection except for the systems on my local network so I can disable tailscale at home

On the road all data goes through a VPN connection except for devices back at home where I can use an exit node

I thought this is what an exit node is for but when I test it by turning on the exit node I lose all Internet. I have been testing this at home is that the problem