A double tap of ⌘, or the ⌥⌘V shortcut. They behave differently on purpose.
There are two ways in, and they behave differently on purpose.
Tap ⌘ twice and keep the second one down. The history opens while you hold. Tap V or use the arrows to move down the list, then let go: the highlighted item is pasted and the window disappears. Open, pick and paste are one motion.
Press ⌥⌘V and release. The popup stays open. Now typing goes into the search field, the arrows move the selection, ⏎ pastes and ⎋ closes. Press ⌥⌘V again to step down the list.
Which one you use is a habit, not a setting. The hold is faster when you know the item is near the top; the shortcut is better when you want to look around.
By default the popup appears at the pointer. Preferences → Clipboard and popup lets you pin it to the centre of the screen or to the menu bar instead.
The modifier for the double tap is yours to choose in Preferences, and the double tap can be switched off entirely.
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