Yes, stars can mean a lot of things.

- visibility

- popularity (technical, domain, persona)

- genuine utility

- novelty

...

There are also plenty of super high utility repos that are widely used (often indirectly), but don't have a lot of stars, or even a meagre amount.

Also there is the issue of star != star, because it's not granular.

It's similar to upvotes on general social media platforms. Everyone likes cute cats doing funny things somewhat, but only few people appreciate something that's more niche but way more impactful, useful or entertaining (or requires some effort to consume), but those who do, value it very highly. But the same person might use the same score (single upvote) for a cat video and a video that they value much higher.