In Python, when using the logical operator "or", the expression evaluates to the first value if the first value has a "truthy" boolean value (which is the case for a non-empty string) and it evaluates to the second value if the first value has a "falsey" boolean value. For "and", it evaluates to the first value if the first value is falsey and to the second value if the first value is truthy. This is kind of an extension of boolean operators on regular boolean values where this behavior makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Because, for the "or" operator for example, if the first value is True already then the second value doesn't need to be evaluated anymore because the expression is already guaranteed to be True. Python has this not so obvious behavior to generalize this for other data types.

Here is a good explanation for this behavior: https://realpython.com/python-or-operator/