It can do lots of magical things, but it seems like the developers tried to make it as different as possible just for the sake of being different.
I’m sure that if you bring up something to a developer of GIMP that “isn’t like Photoshop because it’s buried under 4 menus”, the only thing the developer will do to address the issue is release an update that then buries the feature under 5 menus.
They got their weird software with its weird name and they are PROUD of how weird it all is.
All I can suggest with it is to keep searching Google or YouTube on how to do things with it.
I’ve mostly used Affinity and GIMP over the years. Although my work just got me Photoshop so that I can explore some of its “smart” AI stuff to help with some things.