How do hot air balloons navigate?
That is exactly how balloons “steer” - they pick an altitude where the winds aloft are going the way the pilot wants to - assuming winds at an available altitude exist where the wind is what the pilot wants.

Many balloonists use Ryan Carlton’s wind tool found here to get a good idea of local winds: http://ryancarlton.com

NOAA has a website called RUC soundings that presents actual wind and temperature aloft data from balloon launch sites and then interpolates for locations in between: https://rucsoundings.noaa.gov/

While the pilot can plan a flight and do amazingly well to get near to where they wanted to go, at the end of the day, a balloon, as an unpowered aircraft, is at the mercy of the winds.