Animate Dead targets a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small Humanoid. Create Undead targets corpses of Medium or Small Humanoids. Danse Macabre targets Small or Medium corpses. And you could technically use Animate Object, which targets objects, or True Polymorph, which can target either. Finger of Death and Negative Energy Flood both target a creature, but they just bring back the target as undead if the attack kills them.

But if you really get into it, the game has way too many assumptions to be played RAW. There's no rule that you can't walk through walls. There's no rule that when you're reduced to zero hitpoints you become an object or get transported to an afterlife dimension or otherwise can't take actions (assuming you die instantly and don't become Unconscious). Some weapons require two hands, and nobody can use them because none of the races are described as having hands. Thri-kreen have four arms, but no mention of hands at the end of them. You also need one hand to wield one-handed weapons, but this doesn't come up because no weapons are described as one-handed. And sometimes the rules contradict. There's a rule that in the case of a contradiction, the more specific rule applies, but that just adds yet another contradicting rule.

I mean it's tongue-in-cheek, and it's never really been a problem at my table. Just a fun way to remind casters not to argue about specific wording interpretations in spells, and take them as their most obvious meaning

Now, if a caster comes up with something clever, they can make an Intelligence (Persuasion) check to see if Mystra will allow something. Just don't tell Mystra how her own body works