you might know this already - but kind of the whole significance of nullstellenstatz (i guess for what i'm about to say - technically just weak nullstellenstatz) is that instead of thinking about points (a_1,..,a_n) in k^n, you can instead think of all the functions vanishing at a_1,...,a_n, which is given by the ideal (x_1-a_1,...,x_n-a_n), which is a maximal ideal in k[x_1,...,x_n]. so you can kind of forget this whole thing about k^n and just work with the maximal ideals of your ring.
then when you learn affine schemes you just happen to also include the prime ideals. (then schemes are …