Where should I place local executables on macOS?
Homebrew doesn't directly install packages to the normal locations in /usr/local/, it installs to its own directory (/usr/local/Cellar by default) and then symlinks the files to /usr/local/bin (or lib, opt, and so on).
You could follow this pattern and create your own directory in usr/local/ to store your executables, and then symlink them to /usr/local/bin. This would let you keep all your own files organized in one place without needing to add a new directory to your $PATH.