In Spain it became common after the last university reform, about 15 years ago. IMO it's counterproductive. If a student doesn't want to go to class and you force them, they probably won't be paying attention but just wasting time with social networks or whatever other distraction, and they can even distract those that want to attend. And I don't even feel morally justified to tell them to stop wasting time (as long as they're silent, at least) if they're forced to be there.

I’ve taken and assisted for classes that had “mandatory” attendance. In the sense that missing classes would come out of your grade.

Sometimes it was implemented as a direct role-call. Some classes have a “participation” component which is really just a fuzzy attendance grade. Some classes have random graded in-class quizzes, which also function as a stochastic attendance check.

Generally I hate all of these things IMO low attendance is the instructor’s last, most dramatic barometer to indicate poor instruction, and subverting this measurement is a terrible idea. But it is definitely different for k-12!

Some classes have an attendance requirement, but usually that's set by the department or the individual instructor.