That is an advantage of the British system. You have a wide education until 16 and sit a broad range of exams at that age (GCSEs) and then specialise in a few (most often three) subjects from 16 to 18.
You usually need to pass English and maths GCSEs, but universities mostly care about the subjects you do in the last two years (except for very competitive courses).
This can be a problem for those who want to keep options open until they are 18 (like my younger daughter).
Even the system up to 16 is pretty flexible. There is a huge range of available subjects - although most schools offer only a limited selection (my kids were out of school by secondary school age so we had a huge choice and did some less usual subjects like astronomy and Latin).
As someone who did my GCSE's but then moved abroad before my A Levels and ended up taking the International Baccalaureate, I'm in hindsight really glad I didn't do A Levels. Had I stayed in England I would have studied just maths, physics and chemistry. Being forced by the IB program to also study english, philosophy and economics really expanded my horizons and has been huge boon to me in my life and I'm really happy I was afforded the opportunity to do so.
I did IGCSE's (the international version as I lived in Indonesia) and AS/A levels myself, while a lot of my friends who went to a different school did IB and I generally disagree. My most hated school years were the IGCSE times, exactly because I was forced into learning about crap I didn't care about in the slightest, like English Literature when all I wanted to do was the various sciences and especially mathematics.
I feel like the IGCSE times were more than enough exposure to those other subjects to give me a reasonably well-rounded image of those subjects. Now, a decade later, I'm definitely glad I went the STEM route rather than ever touching on any humanities subjects in any amount of detail.
IGCSEs per se are a lot more flexible about that. You can do any subjects in any combination you like. Its a decision by the school to make English literature compulsory. Home educated kids often do not do it, on the other hand there are are huge number of subjects they can pick from: https://he-exams.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Subjects
British universities do often (usually?) require English language (or an equivalent) and maths (I)GCSEs, as do British employers and further education colleges etc. so its a really bad idea to skip those.
I do think its good to give kids a broad education, and for some it would be good to continue that for longer. For others (like you) its just boring.
I also think there should be more opportunities for adult education, so if you decide later in life that you would like to learn about English literature or physics or whatever you should have a chance to do it. AT the moment in the UK things seem to be going the other way, with an over expansion of universities sucking up money, and further education colleges that used to offer adult education putting the resources into "16 to 18" courses.
Same in the Netherlands, it's become more flexible even since I went through school. It sucks until about age 16 (or 17/18 if you take a higher level education that includes e.g. Latin / Greek), then you get to go to vocational education and either do a work/school combo (1 day a week of school), or continue fulltime school for 3-10 years (3 years for most associate's degrees, 4 for bachelor's, more for a master's, and often you can go from the one to a higher level if you choose to).
But yeah, until that age it sucks and a lot of people struggle because they have to do classes they aren't at all interested in.
You usually need to pass English and maths GCSEs, but universities mostly care about the subjects you do in the last two years (except for very competitive courses).
This can be a problem for those who want to keep options open until they are 18 (like my younger daughter).
Even the system up to 16 is pretty flexible. There is a huge range of available subjects - although most schools offer only a limited selection (my kids were out of school by secondary school age so we had a huge choice and did some less usual subjects like astronomy and Latin).