Exactly! That's what I do in the Netherlands. It's also common to cover this contractually too - you can negotiate where liability falls for many cases.
Getting a limited liability company for a one-person operation is just overkill.
There are two reasons not to go this way in NL, 1. There are tax discounts for small businesses that only apply to a sole proprietorship kind of structure and 2. Administrative costs for a BV are slightly higher because the legal entity itself needs to file taxes, instead of only the owners having to do so.
But the difference is now very small, #1 has been reduced the past few years and #2 is quite simple. It's an online portal to submit the numbers, if you know what you're doing you don't need an accountant.
And I think this is the key criticism for the German system. They don't seem to have a simple online portal for this and they still require 25k starting capital. That makes it harder for a small business to get started.