No option to change simulation distance

I just made my beacon at y-level -60 and when I went back up to the surface, I couldn't see the beacon beam. I did some research, and it seems like this is an issue with the simulation distance. When I was trying to figure out how to change the simulation distance to preferably 12 chunks, I couldn't find an option to do so, and when I imported a world that had a simulation distance of 12, it didn't transfer over.