I thought that I was doing this when I selected the desired channel as an input (as indicated to the left of the “top middle part of my screenshot” that you referenced?
Just to say thanks for that, vic_france! I’d been struggling with that in past weeks and am pleased to see there’s such a simple solution.
To add on: for those (like me) who’ve already created a whole bunch of tracks with useless sends that are preventing ideal routing and want to get rid of all those sends, a simple option-click on the top of that rack should prompt you to erase them in one go.