How does group text work exactly?

I can appreciate that many don't want to be bothered by a group text, so I turned off the option in settings. I thought by doing so I could still add multiple recipients under the same text and they would all be separated when they reply. What seems to be happening is that when they reply, they are separated into individual threads in my messaging hub, but apparently everyone is still receiving everyone's reply. Is this how it works? Doesn't seem like a helpful option, because its not really turning off group text, imo.