I’m running a nightly build from back in February, so I guess the menus are different.
Selecting “Surface mount” in the “Placement type” section creates the line “(attr smd)” in the *.kicad.mod footprint file. You want the option “Normal + Insert”. There is some additional discussion, and historical background, in the thread “Survey: Footprint -> Attributes” at Survey: Footprint -> Attributes .
Dale