I've looked into a few other questions regarding this subject (60797431, 57889990), but all refer to the now deprecated init(destination:isActive:label:). I also tried asking Google's AI, however that went terribly...I suppose I got what I expected.
So, is there a relatively simple way to link the NavigationLink to the submission (i.e. pressing enter/return on the phone's keyboard) of the TextField, or is the only option to set up full navigation paths, which I don't really want to do?

Of .navigationDestination

I have tried using the navigationDestination view modifier, but it seems to immediately come with some significant setup, including the absence of an automatic 'Back' button, (when I tap it I go back to the page before, the listing of departments), as well as the lack of a sliding transition, both of which come packaged with NavigationLink. I understand that this goes hand in hand somewhat with navigation paths.

//MARK: Enter email
struct LoginView: View {
    let department: (id: Int, name: String)
    @State private var email = ""
    @State private var codeView = false
    var body: some View {
        NavigationStack {
            List {
                Section {
                    LabeledContent {
                        TextField("\("jane.citizen1@icloud.com")", text: $email)
                            .keyboardType(.emailAddress)
                            .textInputAutocapitalization(.never)
                            .submitLabel(.next)
                            .multilineTextAlignment(.leading)

                    } label: { Text("Email Address")}
                } header: {
                    VStack(alignment: .leading, spacing: 4) {
                        Text("Sign In")
                            .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, alignment: .leading)
                            .padding(.top, 5)
                            .font(.largeTitle)
                            .bold()
                            .foregroundColor(.primary) // Override default gray header color
                        Text(department.name)
                            .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, alignment: .leading)
                            .font(.title3)
                            .foregroundColor(.secondary)
                    }
                    .listRowInsets(EdgeInsets())
                    .textCase(nil) // Prevents SwiftUI from forcing ALL CAPS on the header
                    .padding(.bottom, 10)
                }
            }
            NavigationLink() {
                VerificationCodeView(/*...*/)
            } label: {
                Text("Next").padding(5)
                    .frame(maxWidth: .infinity)
            }
            .buttonStyle(.borderedProminent)
            .padding()

        }.background { Colour(.systemGroupedBackground) }
    }
}

Plus a couple other questions:

• If I do have to use full navigation paths; given that the navigation prior and to this page are using NavigationLink, will I have to migrate the rest of the pages to the path method as well? Or will I be able to grab the current path, or perhaps the solution is just to start a new path.
• Is it good practice to be using a NavigationStack in every destination view? I'm aware that NavigationLinks depend on them to an extent, however I don't entirely understand the effect of the NavigationStack on content and mechanics.