
network-online.target properly depends on the underlying network management tool (e.g. NixOS static configuration scripts, dhcpcd, NetworkManager, networkd) signalling that all interfaces are up and appropriately configured (to whatever degree possible/required), whereas network.target only indicates that the network management tool itself has started.
*** NixOS *** NixOS is a Linux distribution based on the purely functional package management system Nix. More information can be found at http://nixos.org/nixos and in the manual in doc/manual.