As mentioned above, for overtaking you should drop at least one gear (if not two), regardless of whetehr the knock sensor can adjust timing to stop the knocking, it is not the right technique for safe, quick overtaking to floor the pedal in top gear. Not good for the life of the transmission either.

In a nutshell yes.

TDC or crank sensor feeds back to the ECU where pre programed ignition maps lets the computer "decide" where to fire the plugs.

The knock sensor provides a signal from the "knock" to tell the ECU to change the ignition timing.

The days of adjusting ignition timing manually are long gone,

Unless your running something with points ignition.