Sometimes you might have experienced that even though a range is selected for the search (find) function, Excel ignores it and search everywhere in the file.
This is because you have selected the ‘Find Within Workbook’ option instead of ‘Find Within Worksheet’ option. To solve this issue, simply opt ‘work sheet’ instead of ‘workbook’ in find box.
Refer the following excel spreadsheet.
External links for other issues that might cause this problem
Excel’s search feature not working
Selection area search in Excel
Search engine keywords for this question
Excel searching outside Selection Area
Excel not searching within selection range
Search problem Excel 2007, 2010