First of all I don’t recommend Google Ads – it kept showing my ads to people in Nigeria when I had selected US as the location – but if you do, you have to be extra careful to make sure it does not cheat you this way. Some things to check:

in Location Options (closed by default) make sure you select Presence not the default Presence or Interest.

Second if you are using AI Max, there is a further screen where you should only select the location of interest