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You're comparing totally different electoral and political systems. In Germany (and the UK) people are voting for parties (or local representatives) and not individuals (presidents), meaning the leader of the largest party is generally the one who assumes the top position. Whereas in the States you have a Presidential election.
It is similar in the UK where 57.6% of the population didn't vote for the party in power. But also in the US 53.9% of the population didn't vote for the current president.
At least in Germany it is proportional and they are forced to enter coalition governments. And a proportional system allows a more diverse lineup of political parties, rather than a 2 party system, because there is a realistic chance of representation.
I think that this concept of "voting for a party" to be in congress and then the congress selecting the President was done in the US at one time. It didn't work out that well, as the party bosses picked the president and the usual corruption was even worse than the current system of an electoral college.
The US is not fundamentally a 2 party system, that is just a result of crooked politics and crooked election laws that tend to push out smaller parties.
In CA it is perhaps even worse, because the election laws are written so that they take the results of the primary elections and only forward the "two top candidates in vote count" to the final election. This resulted in eliminating not only third parties like the Greens, Libertarians, Independents, etc - but largely even eliminated the Republican party from many offices.
We get the pleasure of voting for one of two Democrats - which is pretty ridiculous no matter your political views.
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