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I don't understand which situation I've to use this usage of "to". What can be an interchangeable word for this?

Having promised a large reward to the first man to spot land, Columbus claimed that he had seen the light.

Could the sentence be rephrased as:

…the first man who spotted land

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    Yes, it can. This is a reasonably common usage in English. Try doing an Ngram search for the first man to versus the first man who.
    – mdewey
    Commented Nov 4, 2021 at 14:37

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You are correct about the meaning of the phrase. The following reference discusses using a to-infinitive to replace a relative clause that identifies something as unique, such as first, second, last, only etc:

grammaring to-infinitive to replace relative clause

A to-infinitive clause can replace a defining relative clause after ordinal numbers (the first, the second etc.), after superlatives (the best, the most beautiful etc.) and after next, last and only:

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Using "who spotted" would leave the meaning unchanged. But this use of an infinitive verb form is quite common and grammatically normal.

  • The price will be awarded to the first person to break the record.
  • He seemed ready to cry over this disappointment.
  • "I think it will be easy to finish this project today", he said confidently.
  • She was ready to sleep at this point.

This use of "to {verb}" means "to perform the action of {verb}ing".

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