Maybe the difference is that more Americans have credit cards than Europeans.

This is particularly evident in East European countries, e.g. here in Poland credit cards are far less common than debit cards. And so people use them to pay in their grocery store as well as in ATMs.

I for example didn't had a credit card until recently, when I wanted to rent a car, it looks like credit card is (almost) mandatory and I use it only for that purpose.

So it just sits in my drawer until once a year I take it out when I go on vacation and rent a car there.