Like, I would imagine light patterns would mark a runway as take-off, landing, or neither (plane crossing, etc). A pilot told to land on a runway not lit for landing would know something's wrong, and planes would know not to line up on a runway lit for landing, etc.
It's often both, and the direction depends on the wind. It's better for planes to take off into the wind, so as the weather changes runway usage also changes accordingly during the day.
Or were you thinking the lights would change minute by minute based on the next designated usage. That might work! "Now it's a landing runway so it's blinking blue" kind of a thing. So nobody tries to take off or cross it. Or, then when someone is supposed to take off it's blinking yellow so planes landing on it won't be confused.
There have been incidents where one plane is cleared to cross while another is landing on final approach. There's no fault on the pilots I think. With the right signaling on the runways all pilots involved could double check the clearances and one of them can speak up if things are weird.