All of those things are traceable back to a specific geographic location.

Having a GPS location doesn't mean you have a suspect. Unless the person called from their own property (zero chance) or didn't move locations at all after making the call (very unlikely), it would require a substantial investigation that most departments aren't able or willing to do, because the odds of catching someone would be extremely low.

No, but it means that an apparent eyewitness to a hostage situation who isn't at the location they claim to be shouldn't be believed.

Pretty sure they can do that in the US too. Jordan Turpin called the cops on her parents from a phone without a SIM card.

Situation in Belgium: you cannot get a sim without ID/Passport. When you remove your sim, the network provider still knows your imei. So they ask the providers for which sim was used with this imei, and usually find the prankster this way. Sadly, police don’t always show up when you call 112. Even in serious situations.

It'll even work without coverage in some situations, since roaming is always on for emergency calls, even in your home country.