You can set it up to allow you to use the phone even when Android Auto is being used - at least for wired. I haven't used wireless AA yet because my car doesn't support it. Mine is an OEM HU though.

Since you're looking into aftermarket HUs, you mind as well get one that does wired and wireless AA and CarPlay. You'll never know if you ever switch phones, or perhaps a friend/passenger wants to jack in for their music/GPS.

If you go wired, don't give up if your AA keeps disconnecting. AA is very touchy with the cable. After going through a few myself, I ended up getting a 1-foot Amazon Basic USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 cable. It's short, and thicker than most cables due to the standard. It's overkill for AA (USB-C 2.0 I believe on most cars), but the way I see it - it'll be overbuilt, be more reliable, handle more power (if you ever need fast charging, just plug directly into a fast charger instead), AND can be used for fast data transfer with external NVME SSD drives on a laptop in a pinch (if you ever have to repurpose the cable for this purpose). It's also not much more expensive than the USB-C 2.0 Amazon Basic cable.

Because my jack is right by the phone mount, I wanted a 1-foot cable to reduce clutter. If you need a short cable too, this is the exact one I got (dark gray color): https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Double-Braided-Nylon-Type-C/dp/B07D7SP4T4