What OS installer is booted? That is what OS option is there to install on the first screen? If you are booted to an older macOS installer such as 10.7 Lion, then you may not see any valid volumes because older versions of macOS don't understand the newer drive layout utilized by the APFS file system.
Try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to access the online macOS 10.13 High Sierra installer.....assuming that macOS 10.12.4+ was previously installed at some point in the past. If you boot to the High Sierra installer, then within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. Select the physical drive and erase it as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). If successful, then quit Disk Utility and select the "Install macOS High Sierra" option.
Unfortunately sometimes no matter which keys you use to access recovery mode, the Mac may only boot to the online installer for the OS which originally shipped with the Mac from the factory. If it is booted to a macOS 10.7 to 10.10 installer, then you need to partition & format the whole physical drive using the instructions in this article:
https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/formatting/Mac_Formatting_6-10_R3.pdf
FYI, if you can still boot this laptop to the internal drive, then I would highly recommend creating a bootable macOS 10.13 High Sierra USB installer now while you still can so you have more options since some people have issues with Internet Recovery Mode. Here is an Apple article with instructions:
Create a bootable installer - Apple Support