I'm confused with Japanese writing. I have been using Duolingo to get started with Japanese - I know it's not the best platform for learning Japanese but i thought it would be good for learning the basics - and I have a continuous problem, an example of my problem is that, Duolingo taught me that the word 'sushi' is spelt 'すし', which is using hirigana, but then when I search up 'sushi written in japanese', it comes up with 'すし', but also various different spellings of the word, mostly in kanji, such as '寿司' and '鮨' etc, etc. What usually happens when i search up how any word is spelt in japanese is that it comes up with various different spellings, so my question is, is there any 'right' way to spell things in Japanese, or does it not matter which spelling you use? E.G, could I write 'sushi' as either 'すし' or '寿司' and it wouldn't make a difference, or is one of them more correct?

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Hi, Iona.
With sushi, すし, 寿司, and 鮨 are all ok.
They mean just the same.
Words like 花 (hana meaning a flower) and 華(hana meaning elegance/gorgeousness) are different.
When you're not sure, look up in a dictionary, or ask Japanese people here like me😊

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You go in a wrong direction as you start with the ABC and then try to apply it to 字 -- but in fact you should move from 猫 to NE'ko, from 枕 to MA'ku'ra etc, keeping in mind that plenty of borrowed western words are only written in katakana in all cases