how is the value of banknotes guaranteed?
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The issuing country will accept them as payment for official business, like taxes and fees.
Beyond that, there is usually no legal guarantee that anyone else will accept a given banknote as payment. In a healthy economy, it just makes sense for them to do so. Walmart will accept USD in exchange for a t-shirt because they know that employees and vendors will accept USD in return for labor and products. There’s a lot of inertia in a system like that, so it would take significant economic turmoil for Walmart to start preferring some other form of payment.
And for what it’s worth, it’s usually countries in economic turmoil who start passing more laws about how their currency is to be used – for example by mandating exchange rates or price ceilings for certain goods. It has stopped being a good idea for people to use their currency, so the government hopes they can prop it up with the force of law instead.
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