It came about because that was what was available.
The concept of a drum set in the music that would become to be known as jazz goes back to approximately 1890.
Zildjian didn't start making cymbals in America until 1928.
When Ludwig drums formed in 1910, they started with just pedals, drums came later.
Slingerland didn't make drums until 1926 or so.
So drummers in the early 1900's, and even at the start of the roaring 20's, didn't have many choices in drum equipment.
And drummers at the time didn't just play jazz, they played a lot of vaudeville gigs, that required a drummer to have a variety of sound effects.
So Ludwig, Slingerland, and others imported sound effects from China to fill this need, including the tack on toms and china cymbals, blocks any other percussion instruments that seemed to fit into vaudeville, which of course got quickly adapted to jazz.
It wasn't until the early 30's that the major drum companies started making tunable toms, which is also around the time vaudeville popularity declined while big band music became more popular. And thus the drum set evolved more into what we think of a drum set and less of a collection of separate percussion instruments.