How to select into a variable in PL/SQL when the result might be null?

You can simply handle the NO_DATA_FOUND exception by setting your variable to NULL. This way, only one query is required.

    v_column my_table.column%TYPE;

BEGIN

    BEGIN
      select column into v_column from my_table where ...;
    EXCEPTION
      WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND THEN
        v_column := NULL;
    END;

    ... use v_column here
END;