Guess you haven't done this despite your previous history but curious since you've asked.

The misconception here is "restoring BTC-funds", which isn't what the 12 words seed phrase is for.
It's actually a mnemonic that can be used to (re)compute your wallet's private keys and addresses.
The wallet on the other hand, uses those restored data to check for associated transactions from your (auto-)selected server.
By "associated transactions", I mean including those with outputs that you already spent.