How exactly can I find out the nearest cell tower that I am connected to? I tried just dialing 9 to get the operator to say "announcement" and a bunch of numbers, but don't know if that is how to do it/ how to interpret it. Thanks for any feedback!
The best way, if you use an Android phone is to run CellMapper (it's an app on the Play Store) and go for a drive / walk for a bit. As CellMapper maps out as you walk, over time the phone will begin to identify towers, put these towers on a map, and point out an approximation of the location of your tower. CellMapper will pay attention to technical things such as the Cell Identifier, Neighboring towers / sectors (areas where directional antennas on the towers cover to provide capacity/coverage), and your GPS location.
Once CellMapper has enough information mapped, you can then go to the map, and it'll show you your connected tower's location, and the areas where your tower has been mapped providing coverage.
That is awesome. This may be a weird question. May I also ask if there is a way for your phone though to switch between one tower to another just in case you need or want to. I can't seem to figure out how to do it or if it is possible with an iPhone or Android device.
Not technically possible without having access to a phone's lower level baseband API. On some phones, you can increase how aggressive the phone is between hopping between towers and even LTE bands. On newer flavors of Android, you can do so by enabling the Developer Menu (Settings > About Device > Status > Tap the build number a bunch of times) and then by turning on the option "Aggressive Cell/Wi-Fi Handoff." This option would have to be turned on each time you reboot the phone.
There are also some phones, with access to the engineering menu, you can select cells to try to connect to, and also select what bands you want enabled or disabled. But the only place you'll necessarily see this on are Nexus phones at this point. Most have seen the engineering menus locked out or straight-up removed.
In short, the phone should connect to the nearest tower in most cases, unless there isn't sufficient difference between two or more overlapping sites - then the phone will use the tower with the best SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio). There is also a Carrier file on the phone/SIM which tells the phone what bands to use and in what order.
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