Best provider.tf (versions.tf) placement

Except, you have terraform.tfstate files in various other places in your tree, disagreeing with this.

You’re aware of that but you still haven’t explained whether you’re talking about provider "name" {} blocks or terraform { required_providers {} } blocks, both, or other stuff.

You can’t. Terraform does not “look outside” the configuration you are running it on for additional configuration to merge in.