WPF: StackPanel vs. Grid

As a new comer to the Microsoft Windows Presentation Framework (WPF), I was perplexed about my ListView. I put a ListView inside a StackPanel, but the ListView does not attempt to occupy the full space of the StackPanel although the Width and Height of the ListView were set to "Auto" - the ListView simply auto-grows based on its contents. When I reduce the size of the window, the ListView does not resize with it either - it just gets clipped. The same thing happens if I put a ScrollViewer into the StackPanel.

Then I found out from some forum (I cannot remember the link now), that when a widget (OK, control, in Microsoft speak) is put in the stack panel, it assumes unlimited canvas space and therefore, does not try to resize. To achieve the effect that I wanted (imaging the ListView of the Windows File Explorer, which occupies the whole space of the window and resizes with the window), I had to replace the StackPanel with Grid. This way, the ListView will auto-resize with its container and shows the scroll-bars accordingly. See screenshot and XAML code snippet below (and yes, I have been using code behind to populate the ListView's GridView column headers programmatically reading from database).

Although my problem is solved, I cannot help thinking that the behaviour of StackPanel is rather inconsistent - e.g. the GroupBox stretches and resizes with the StackPanel (at least it can anchor itself to the left and right sides), but ListView (or ScrollViewer) cannot.