Web.config transformation does not take web.debug.config but uses default

dotnet publish seems not to take the existing web.debug.config.

Steps

• Created a new project in VS 2022 (17.6.2), using 'ASP .NET Core Web API' as project template.
• Did a dotnet publish from CLI and grabbed the default web.config from publish folder.
• Then added a web.debug.config with same content as the default to the project root.
• Within web.debug.config, added timeout value <aspNetCore requestTimeout="00:02:00" ....
• When I do a dotnet publish again, the web.debug.config gets copied to the publish folder, default web.config is still there.
• I would expect that there is a web.config with the content from my own web.debug.config.

I have played around with <CopyToOutputDirectory>Never</CopyToOutputDirectory> and <CopyToPublishDirectory>Never</CopyToPublishDirectory> resulting the file beeing copied or not, but without effect on the actual content of web.config.

What am I missing or is my expectation among Transforming Web.config wrong?
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/iis/transform-webconfig?view=aspnetcore-7.0

My assumption was wrong:
a web.debug.config does not replace the web.config but transform it using the xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform" namespace and later its Locator and Transform attributes.