You have defined your schema correctly, except that it doesn't match the data you say you are validating. If you change the property names to match the schema, you still have one issue. If you want to allow "toll" and "message" to be null, you can do the following.

{
  "type": "array",
  "items": {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
      "loc": {
        "type": "string"
      },
      "toll": {
        "type": ["string", "null"]
      },
      "message": {
        "type": ["string", "null"]
      }
    },
    "required": [
      "loc"
    ]
  }
}

However, that isn't related to the error message you are getting. That message means that data you are validating is not an array. The example data you posted should not result in this error. Are you running the validator on some data other than what is posted in the question?

"type": "array",
"items": { // this schema applies to all items
  "type": "object",
  "required": [ "address", "first_name", "last_name" ],
  "properties": {
    "address": { "type": "string", ... },
    .. all your other property definitions here...
  },
  "oneOf": [
    { "required": [ "phone_ number" ] },
    { "required": [ "cell_ number" ] }
  ]
}

See https://json-schema.org/understanding-json-schema/reference/combining.html and https://json-schema.org/understanding-json-schema/reference/array.html

You can achieve this using the anyOf keyword and definitions/$ref to avoid duplication.

{
  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "assetMetadata": {
      "anyOf": [
        { "$ref": "#/definitions/assetMetaData" },
        {
          "type": "array",
          "description": "...",
          "items": { "$ref": "#/definitions/assetMetaData" }
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "definitions": {
    "assetMetadata": {
      "type": "object",
      "additionalProperties": false,
      "properties": { ... }
    }
  }
}

maybe try this:

{
  "type": "array",
  "items": {
    "type": "object",
    "additionalProperties": false,
    "properties": {
      "provider_metadata_id": {
        "type": "number"
      }
    }
  },
  "contains": {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
      "provider_metadata_id": {
        "enum": [1, 77, 90]
      }
    }
  }
}