It depends on what you mean by meaningful. What it means is the chimpanzees are very similar to human beings, but we can observe this by just watching them and studying their behavior. Now your analogy is interesting, but doesn’t exactly apply. DNA is very different than directions or atoms (which by the way humans and star fish don’t have the 100% the same variety or quantity, but that’s irrelevant). DNA is the plan, the coding, for a living organism. It is what constantly writes and rewrites the physical and biological properties of every living thing on earth.
To bring your analogy into alignment with this we could say, hypothetically of course, that New York City and San Fransisco have the exact same city planning (as in they have buildings of the same size and shape in the same location) save for one building having a small section slightly larger in NYC. If you lay the city plans over each other you may not even notice the small section of the building, but that small area contains a local CIA head quarters which conducts large amounts of international espionage. This is essentially what the difference between human and chimpanzee DNA is. We are very similar creatures, closely related, and optimized for similar environments, but that small difference between the two of us has a powerful effect which redefines us (while both primates, chimps are apes and humans are not).
The number is used to suggest that we have a close common ancestor with chimpanzees, and according to the data this makes logical sense.