One that lots of people here use is Balena Etcher.
You will also need to decompress the .gz file to have an .img file ready to write.
I personally use either Apple pi baker, or a command prompt. But use what everyone else uses first.
I think I know what you’re trying to do. Are you just copying files to the SD card? This image doesn’t do that, although seeing as some other distributions for other devices can, it could be something to look into! Eg NOOBS on raspberry pi. You shouldn’t have to format your card. The image will overwrite everything, sector by sector on the card, including partition tables.