Question SpriteAtlas, AssetBundles and 'Include in Build'

I've seen now in a number of places that 'Include in Build' simply means that a Sprite will correctly reference its SpriteAtlas (even if its in an asset bundle), like from here:

However, it seems that by checking this box, Unity is including the SpriteAtlas in my aab/apk build. I can see the textures in the build report (taking up 1.8% of the size). Also, the aab/apk size increases when I check this box.

Is this the case or is there something potentially wrong with my setup? We obviously don't want our SpriteAtlas in the build if they're in AssetBundles. I know I can do LateBinding but I'm just looking for clarity on how this is actually supposed to function.

 

Managed to figure it out. There were UI prefabs in the build that were referencing Sprites from the atlases. Unity was forced to include them in this case. I'm solving it by implementing a separate script to load SpriteAtlases on demand.