It’s how every phone charging cable works, just with a different size male USB on one end.

No, it's exactly not how every phone charging cable works, at least not for non USB-C cables.

Pre-USB-C cables are explicitly unidirectional. In USB there are 'hosts' (usually computers) and 'devices' (flashdrives, camera's, mice, keyboards, etc.). The host side always has a female USB-A connector, a device either has a female USB-B connector (if it's intended to be used with a cable), or a male USB-A (if it's intended to be plugged in directly into a host, like a flash drive). A real, standard-conformant USB cable can only go from USB-A male to USB-B male (with the addition of USB-C, it can also go from A-to-C, from C-to-B, or C-to-C). Never A-to-A or B-to-B, extension cables (male to female) of any type, A, B or C, are not allowed either.

USB was specifically designed like this so you can never connect a device to a device or a host to a host.

On the host side, you pretty much only see full size USB-A ports. On the device side there are 3 common types of USB-B ports: standard size (you can for example see these on printers and scanners), mini-USB-B used a lot on older phones, and later micro-USB-B. On each side the male part is on the cable, the female part is on the host or device.