Its possible you connected to a cell tower some distance from you, and not necessarily the closest one (or second closest, or third…)
Antenna patterns are often lazily shown as a system of interlocking circles. They aren’t. In reality they’re really messy made up of spikes and lobes in three-dimensions. Example:
I remember a case where two persons on meth froze to death. They called 911 but the tower that connected was nine miles away.
