For now I am getting around the issue by executing the following command in the VisualStudio PowerShell:

dotnet publish -f net8.0-android -c Release -p:AndroidKeyStore=true -p:AndroidSigningKeyStore="my.keystore" -p:AndroidSigningKeyAlias=keyalias -p:AndroidSigningKeyPass=mypassword -p:AndroidSigningStorePass=mypassword -p:AndroidPackageFormats=aab -p:ApplicationId=com.myapp.maui

following this description:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/android/deployment/publish-cli?view=net-maui-8.0