I could write a long list of things you should probably do but if I could recommend just one thing it would be to watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsKYAa1ZXpQ it really helped me to understand how react works.
Think of it as a way to create your own complex HTML controls like the combobox/select. And just like those, try to give all information it needs to work via attributes or sub-elements.