It completely depends on the specific phone because there are many reasons a manufacturer my choose to do this.
One of the most common reasons is to have on camera that is either zoomed in farther or zoomed out farther to give the user the ability to change the amount of stuff in the picture without significantly lowering the quality.
On full sized cameras what is called optical zoom can be used, or an adjustable zoom through one lens, but this requires magnitudes more thickness than a smartphone can have.
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