> when the leader is elected every 10 minutes, do they get a choice of what block they append to the chain? No they don’t. Yes, they do get to choose the block

> when the leader is elected every 10 minutes, do they get a choice of what block they append to the chain? No they don’t. Yes, they do get to choose the block. Transactions to include in the block are (usually) chosen from the mempool, which is unique per node (it’s similar but never exactly the same between any two nodes). Miners can also choose to include transactions that were never publicly broadcasted, and therefore never appeared in another mempool. Typically the transactions with highest fees are chosen, although fees can also be paid (or bumped) outside the mempool. The miner of a block doesn’t get to choose the contents of every transaction, but they do choose which transactions to include when they win a block. It seems like you’re hung up on terms that aren’t commonly used in the context of bitcoin mining, but are valid and are commonly used in the broader context of distributed systems.