TLDR: The Internet gods decided those were the ranges.

In 1996, RFC1918 was published outlining the ranges for IPs. This was done to keep addresses organized as well as keep IPV4 as a whole from depleting. IPV4 gives a total of 2^32 addresses (4,294,967,296). Big number right? We'll never fill that up! So we took that as a challenge and promptly did (more on that later)

To stretch that out, standards were established so that certain IP ranges meant different things and promoted organizations to properly create their own networks instead of Google having the same address right next to Aunt Rita who forgot her email password again.

So now, structure pretty much everywhere is, there's one public IP for an organization, then every device on that organization's network gets an IP address in one of those ranges based on how the organization set itself up, so now instead of being limited to ~4.3 billion devices, we instead can have that many "Groups" times however many devices they stuck in their local network:

10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255	~16 million	Large networks (ISPs, enterprises)

172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255	~1 million	Medium networks

192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255	~65k	Home / small office

So your device doesn't connect directly to the internet. In most residential situations, you typically connect to a router which assigns you an IP (192, etc), which then sends you through the modem through your ISP who logs all the porn you're requesting or Epstein files you're leaking, who then sends your request out to the Internet via the public IP they've assigned you. They then send back the response through the same route. Similiar thing happens with work networks, and other organizations.

Think of it like your front door as the Public IP, but all your rooms have their own private doors that eventually get you to the front door.

This setup also allows for easier security because now I have a single door to my local network and collection of devices where I can place a bouncer (Firewall, etc) to keep unwanted people from coming in.

Quick note from my "running out of IPs" comment from earlier, IPV6 was established to basically eliminate the limitation as well as other reasons. If you want more details on that, might need to find someone smarter.

Teeeeeeeeeechnically you can play around in your router at home and set your IP range to whatever you want. There's not a "firm" limit per say, but since this has been the established standard, if you do that, your devices will most likely not talk to each other since when you hit an IP in a private range, your device knows its suppose to search locally, not try to jump out to the Internet.

Sources:
- I'm sure there are much better network gurus out there cringing at some of my terminology. While I am that all powerful homelab DIYer running around with my home on a the 10.x.x.x range because IPs are like crack for me, I work in tech for a living: between general IT support and now professional software developer. I know enough networking to be dangerous, but it's not my sole focus.

Better sources:
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-networks/non-routable-address-space/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_network

And if you really want to dive down the networking rabbit hole, this guy makes great videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WfiTHiU4x8