It's like having a presidential race between Biden and Trump and then installing Weird Al Yankovic as president after all votes are counted.
Von Der Leyen was not proposed by any party. The parties proposed other leaders. The "spitzenkandidaten" system that led to Juncker becoming EU President was only used once and was ignored this time. In fact nobody knows why or how Von Der Leyen became the EU President, only that the council leaders disappeared into a secret meeting and at the end, the deed was done. What was discussed? Were countries bribed or threatened to go along with it? What exactly qualified her for this role given her track record of failure in Germany? Nobody knows the answers to these questions.
So no, it's really nothing like the Chancellor in Germany or leadership anywhere else. The EU's own misinformation campaign around this topic is clearly highly effective. Normally, the people who run the country are elected by at least some local voters and then by the party itself. With the EU Commission, the president just ... turned up.
Germany and France wanted these positions and decided amongst themselves who got which. Both wanted the ECB presidency more.
This could still happen in the USA. The electors (the 538 people in the Electoral College who actually pick the president) could vote for anyone they wanted, and if enough wanted Weird Al then he would be POTUS. States have made laws to require electors to vote for the person who won the state election or face punishment, but that is not a Constitutional requirement or anything.
Is that meant to be a bad thing? Because you make it sound like a good thing.