If they post pictures it is almost always of the few square kilometers of the city where millionaires and shops for millionaires are located. The rest of the city is full of streets and cars are everywhere. The one difference is that there are trains, which usually are awful places but get you from A to B.
In a huuuuge share of the US, this is not the case. There are no sidewalks, you have to travel extremely far to get to anything, and cross highways or even freeways doing it. There's no transit. There's no village center or train station around a natural focal point, just giant strip malls that are few and far between. So EVERYONE. MUST. DRIVE. It is the ONLY option for every trip and errand, there is no alternative. This is insane.
I've lived in Jacksonville, Nashville, Atlanta, and Phoenix, none of which are known for having the greatest walkable urban infrastructure but none of what you've said here is true (other than lack of a train station) of any of them. Where did you live in the US where there are no sidewalks and you had to cross freeways to get to anything? And no transit? Not even a city bus? Or does that not count.
Just as a hint, Europeans love their cars as well. They drive them a lot and outside of large cities public infrastructure is sparse at best and almost never an actually viable alternative.