I've never been able to choose where I sit, to any meaningful degree.
Where I work, team leads allocate desks in their own area. Usually, the team lead chooses to sit by the window and the more junior staff by the corridor, so they can deal with random queries from other staff, which lets the team leads work with fewer interruptions.
Sometimes teams merge or one has a recruitment surge, then there's a bit more upheaval. We have a facilities officer to deal with that, thankfully (frankly he'd rather deal with blocked toilets - they're less stressful 
).
We all have under-desk pedestals on wheels, and our phone handsets just unplug at the back of the handset (not under the desk), plus we should all have the same laptop docks, so moving is physically very simple.
It's open plan and there are some other, quiet spaces, where we can go and work if we choose, plus small rooms and pods for working with others.
DH works in an office where they now have permanent hot desking. He hates it for the following reasons:
- high risk of there being not enough desks available with your own team, and having to sit in someone else's office (he really, really, hates this);
- having to adjust his chair every single day (he thinks he never gets it right);
- having to put everything away at night in a specific locker - not necessarily near that day's desk - and reverse in the morning, wasting working time.
OP you'd hate my place - we are growing so we give everyone a funky name label for their desk, so we can find people easily. It's invaluable!