– could the space shuttle just fly into space like a plane, rather than being propelled vertically by rockets?
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The space shuttle never flew in the same way as an aircraft does, the best it could do was fall with style.
It wasn’t a true space plane. It was a reusable rocket that did a rolling landing rather than a space X style vertical one. The only reason it had such large wings was for a military requirement. During development the idea was to put a large spy camera in the cargo bay, launch into a polar orbit over the target, take a picture, and then land back at the launch site 1 orbit later.
The lateral movement required to return to the launch site on re-entry required the larger wings. As the space X starship shows you don’t need large wings for a controlled belly-flop style braking manoeuvre.
This mission profile also set the size of the cargo bay, large enough to hold the standard spy satellite camera system of the day. Commercial and scientific use could have managed with a far smaller shuttle.
By the time the shuttle flew improvements in digital camera technology made this flight profile obsolete and the ability was never used.
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