local DNS server does not work as expected

So I am working on my home server. I installed docker and use a dnsmasq container as my dns server to resolve local ip adresses.

Laptop and server are both linux (ubuntu LTS 24.4)

What works:

• 'resolvectl status' shows the ip of my dns server
• i can ping the ip of the dns server (that will run other stuff like nextcloud soon as well)
• i can use nslookup to resovle server.local to the correct ip address (even after changing the entry, so its not the cache in my laptop)

what does not work:

• i can not ping server.local (- for testing i have to stop the systemd-resolved.service to run the dnsmasq server, or else there are port collisions, but that should not be the problem i guess. I am happy to hear your solution :))
• i can also not use ssh to log in to server.local, ip address works

What am i missing?

Thanks a lot already! BTW: ZFS is crazy nice :D