I’ve always understood knockout to mean as soon as you turn the heat off. A knockout hops addition would be added at “zero” minutes and the wort would then be immediately chilled to pitch temperature, however long that takes. A whirlpool hops addition would be added at some temperature between boiling and pitch, say 160F, and then held there for some amount of time. When the time is up, the wort then being further chilled to pitch temp.
Of course, I could be wrong.