Is IOS 15.2 compatible with Catalina in a MacBook Pro mid 2012?

I have a Macbook Pro mid 2012 running Catalina 10.15.7. I back up my iPhone XS to the MacBook Pro. In the past I have been caught upgrading my iPhone and not being able to restore the backup because there was an incompatibility between the new upgrade and the MacBook operating system level. I know that Cataina is still in support, but want to make sure of the compatibly before I do a restore to factory defaults on the phone and restore my data. Catalina is the last OS that my MacBook will run. I want to do a restore to recover space as I am almost out. As an alternative, is there a way to do a restore without upgrading IOS? I did it some time a few years ago, but don't remember the steps. I did find an article, but it references using iTunes, and it seems you use Finder for the backups with Catalina.

Thank you