Group operations block shows select field?

I expected that the group operations block would render the same as a menu i.e. a list of links, but instead it is built with:

        $build['#type'] = 'operations';
        $build['#links'] = $links;

which renders the links as a select field which is plain weird.
Probably better would be to render the links like this:

  $build = [
    '#theme' => 'links',
    '#links' => $links,
  ]; 

Gives the expected result.