If you have multiple pages on your home screen, the Google search bar appears only on the first one. So one workaround is to keep only rarely-needed (or no!) apps on that first page, and use 2nd/3rd/… pages for all your everyday apps. That way, its effect is minimised.
(At least, that's how I worked around it on my Gemini, and it has worked well for me. Apart from that bar, the default launcher works well enough, and I didn't want the hassle of adding another one and dealing with updates, possible future incompatibilities or other problems, etc. That said, I've seen several recommendations for Nova Launcher, so it must work for some folks.)
