Yes, the Nvidia proprietary driver has a kernel module that must be installed separately from the kernel. Most distros that focus on desktop usage and/or gaming handle this for you in a relatively simple way, but even with that, if you use a cutting-edge kernel you'll often end up with an unbootable system due to the kernel updating before the nvidia kernel module does. If you need nvidia on Linux, either use the (much worse, but rapidly improving) open source drivers or a distro that uses consistently supported kernels like Ubuntu, Mint, or Pop!_OS