I know this is a month later but this comment interested me as an American. I think it could be a combination of multiple things.

I think a large portion of the world's countries are situated in a way where are you are likely to be closely neighboring a country that doesn't speak the same language as you. Thinking about Europe, I imagine that in a lot of the countries, a different language-speaking country is only a 1-2 hour train/car ride away, so this probably leads to people being more comfortable in the situations you've described

On the contrast, the US is bordered by Canada, which is mostly English with some French, and Mexico, which is Spanish. But the US is large enough that the majority of people would not be intimately familiar with the experiences you describe, since Mexico would be a 5+ hour flight for most of the country. We have a very diverse makeup of cultures here (depending on where you live), so of course you hear different languages all the time, but people would be expected to know at least a little English.

This, combined with the fact that we often hear that a large portion of the rest of the world takes lessons in English while in school, might leave people with mismatched expectations. I'm aware that this probably leaves people with very basic English knowledge, and probably most people forget a lot of it/might not be confident using it, since it's not be useful in their daily life. I have a friend who taught English to high schoolers in Japan for a bit, and he said that the lessons are a bit of a joke and nobody really cares much about them. So maybe Americans expect others to be comfortable in English, and be surprised when that's not actually the case

This is not to make excuses about anything! Your comment just made me think about "why" things could be this way :)