For me it’s pretty much a combination of what suits the music and what frequencies I require to be able to hear myself clearly in the mix. If I’m playing at home I more heavily favour the former. If playing live I tend to more heavily favour the latter.
Having said that, on my passive basses I usually have the tone wide open as a starting point - my Dingwall Super PJ is a good example of this - but I rarely change strings and don’t typically favour a ton of high end in my sound as a rule. Unless of course the style demands it.
On my active basses, such as my Xotic XJs, I find myself tweaking the onboard preamp controls and the passive tone control on almost a constant basis from song to song. The tonal options on these basses are incredibly broad which I’m sure puts people off (“how many knobs?!”) - but the passive tone knob and the 3 band preamp controls interact in a really intuitive way. It’s pretty much impossible to produce a “bad” sound out of them, crazy though that may sound to some.