It’s actually similar to the shuttle, In a couple of ways simpler, and a couple of ways more complex. The shuttles body was also designed to both generate lift and be a blunt body - with a transition of mode between them. The blunt body allowed it to survive reentry while the lifting body allowed it to glide. However that glide was way more complex then NASA generally talked about. The shuttle pulled some aggressive s-turns to bleed off energy during the re-entry.

This approach is more or less the same as what the starship is doing here, except instead of using a glider trajectory for the controlled landing they instead use retropropulsive landing. This is needed because what SpaceX is landing here is a second stage, not a first stage. Way more heat, way more power.