What type of route matches all possible destinations in the routing table?

The correct answer is the default route because it is specifically designed to match any destination that is not explicitly listed in the routing table. In a typical routing configuration, the default route is expressed as 0.0.0.0/0. This means that for any destination IP address that the router does not have a specific route for, it will use the default route to forward the traffic.

The default route serves as a catch-all option, enabling routers to direct traffic toward a designated next-hop address when all other routing possibilities have been exhausted. This is particularly useful in cases where a network might not need to maintain routes for every single destination, thus simplifying the routing process.

Other options like local routes, connected routes, and static routes serve more specific purposes. Local routes refer to the routes associated with IP addresses configured on the router's interfaces, while connected routes represent networks that are directly attached to the router. Static routes are manually configured paths to specific destination networks. None of these options can match a broader range of destinations like a default route can, which is specifically meant for unmatched traffic.