You're missing the fact that "docker desktop" actually provides the docker daemon as well as a GUI. There are alternatives for both Mac and Windows, but I'd wager that many people use "docker desktop" just for the ability to run docker containers from the cli.
Windows and macOS are specifically not the same here.
WSL2 provides everything you need to install the docker daemon and CLI, and the VS Code extension gives you a pretty decent GUI, there's no need for anything else really.