I would love to choose that option under "uncommon situations" but unfortunately that option for it not being self-employment is not coming up for me when I'm entering my 1099-NEC info.
That's correct. "You can't get there from here".
The best you can do, in the 1099-NEC interview, is choose "This is not money earned as an employee or self employed person; it is from a sporadic activity or hobby". That will put the income on line 8z of Schedule 1 as "Nonemployee compensation from 1099-NEC", which is unearned income ("other income").
If you want it to be treated as earned income, you're going to have to enter it somewhere else. The original poster identified his income as "stipend". Stipends are reported as taxable scholarship.
