Keeping settings on auto is fine for now.
Zoom: use optical but not digital. The digital zoom just makes the pixels bigger, considerably reducing image quality.
ISO: 200 is a good all-purpose setting (but may be too dark for indoors). 400 is fine. Going above that depends on your camera; the less expensive the camera, the sooner you’ll get noise in the image as you raise the ISO.
Image settings (size and resolution): maximize these. The only reason to go to a lesser-size/resolution is to save memory, but you lose image quality.
The only special scene mode worth using is the one for fast-moving subjects, usually labeled sports with an icon something like this: