Jay Foreman is a treasure, before my first trip to the UK I watched his videos and they were some of the most informative ones there. Both for learning how to read a tube map and also getting some of the history
This is also the case in The Netherlands. I live in a "city" with 15.000 residents, whilst there are "villages" with 100.000. Just because newer places(?) never got the ceremonial title of city.
Tldr is that the official term "city" in the UK is pretty much entirely ceremonial.
All it means is that the ruling monarch liked your town enough that they would give it city status by royal decree. That's why "city status" seems so arbitrary because it's entirely is.