| Kommentar | 'By the window' and 'next to the window,' or just 'in a window seat,' are the options for a plane. I think that might be like 'neben' in German?
'At the window' is perhaps more poetic or old-fashioned, from the days when women used to sit at the window every day to get enough light to do their sewing, or when they kept watch from the tower window in the castle, waiting for the hero to come up the road on his white horse. It might be literally a little more like 'an' in German, but is there really a big difference between 'neben' and 'an' in this case?
'In the window' is mostly for things, not people. Stores put signs in their windows, or show off their products in display windows. A cat might sit in the window, or you might put a plant in the window, meaning on the windowsill, inside the curtains when you close them. But a person could only sit in the window if he or she had one leg inside and one leg outside, say; or if the window is itself like a separate space, like a bay window with a window seat.
Finally, 'near the/a window,' as others have said, or 'close to the/a window,' means in the general vicinity of the window, but not necessarily right next to it. In a restaurant, you might ask for a table near a window if you wanted to be generally in a lighter area where you could see out, as opposed to far at the back, near the kitchen or the restrooms. There might be only two or three tables that are really window tables, right next to a window, but there could be several others that are close enough to be called near.
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