Not always, or never?
I had an inline 4 on a VW transaxle years ago that would do that (push the starter button repeatedly and listen to the bendix skip off the ring gear till it would engage and make the contact, ting, ting, ting,....
).
Fix on my end was to grind the alignment ring around the nose of the starter housing down on one side and slot the bolt holes slightly (it was known as an 'unsupported' starter among the VW crowd, on the 'supported' ones the starter shaft was longer and would engage a bushing in the transaxle housing).
Hope that helps.