alt Hacker NewsThe license is tied to the platform (for the most part, there have been ways to run Java edition on android forever), so if you bought the android version you only have whatever's available on android.
I brought up the bedrock/java bundle deal with the PC version since the main advantage of Bedrock is the crossplay. If you want to play with someone on (for example) android, you can simply choose to launch into bedrock on PC for multiplayer
Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're describing is client-hosted Bedrock servers, not a persistent, always available, self-hosted server. AFAIK connecting to a friend's world in Bedrock is free, but they must also be online. Hosting a persistent Bedrock server is a paid feature (Realms).
Additionally, highlighting that Bedrock Minecraft is not supported on Mac.
There are surely other ways of enabling multiplayer Minecraft for a family than what I've described, but this is the way I'd recommend.