Open PDF files with pdf-tools does not work

Question

I want to use pdf-tools to read my pdf with emacs. I am on Emacs 27.1 with spacemacs 0.300.x. I have pdf-tools as a package in my .spacemac file and also require

 '(TeX-view-program-selection
   '((output-dvi "open")
     (output-pdf "PDF Tools")
     (output-html "open")))

However compiling a file with auctex I have Docview that is opening instead of pdf-tools.

pdf-looks looked installed, reinstalling it does not fix the problem.

Using describe-variable I get the following:

 '(TeX-view-program-selection
   '((output-dvi "open")
     (output-pdf "PDF Tools")
     (output-html "open"))) 

TeX-view-program-list is nil

TeX-view-program-list-builtin is a variable defined in ‘tex.el’.
Its value is
(("Preview.app" "open -a Preview.app %o" "open")
 ("Skim" "open -a Skim.app %o" "open")
 ("PDF Tools" TeX-pdf-tools-sync-view)
 ("displayline" "displayline %n %o %b" "displayline")
 ("open" "open %o" "open"))

I have red How to use pdf-tools (pdf-view-mode) in emacs? and it is not helping here.

Note that opening a pdf file directly opens it with DocView.