The main thing to understand is (an initially unintuitive concept) that, for LO/OO Writer, page numbering is an attribute of “text flow”, which is controlled by Paragraph, not Page, formatting. When you introduce a manual Page Break (Insert > Manual Break > Page break), you can then optionally specify a new Page Style – and if so then, optionally, a new Page number. After that break, the new Page style and number are reflected in the Paragraph format of the first paragraph following the Page Break (even if that first paragraph is just a line break/return), under the “Text Flow” tab, and the Page style follows the text flow (which, as ajlittoz said, you can confirm conveniently by using the Styles pane).
This is all easiest to manage if you create different Page styles for your different page functions. For example, in the example you describe, you might have page styles “Title page” (or “Title”), “Table of Contents” (or “ToC”), and “Contents” (or “Main”, or “Body”), or whatever feels descriptively right to you. Then:
- Begin with Page style “Title” (ignore page number), then
- Insert Page Break to “ToC” (ignore page number), and finally
- Insert Page Break to “Content”, specifying Page Number 1.
Then just specify a footer for Page style “Content”, and finally insert a Page Number field in the footer. (Page styles “Title” and “ToC” probably have no footer.)
[As noted, that is the easiest way to manage your example. You can control page numbers as you require without creating page styles, but it is not advisable without a good feel for the text flow process – and even then, everything is just simpler with styles.]
