The federal government has done nothing about these actions by the local governments, so this is a distinction without a difference.

They actually have. The Supreme Court had a recent ruling, congress has passed laws to try and restrict it (to the best that federal rules can affect local state ones). The distinction definitely is important, but if you have an ideological bone to pick, it’s better to ignore it.

The US has a very large voting bloc composed of people who want their state and municipality to be free from restrictions imposed by the federal government. In practice, this leads to many places with a significantly larger amount of actually-experienced tyranny than you get in more uniformly governed countries. Ideally, this is coupled with freedom of movement, so that it's easy to get a job and housing in a state or city with more liberal governance.

If you actually believe that then you are amazingly ignorant about the legal structure of the USA and its dual sovereignty system. You should ask your civics teacher for a refund.