The relaxed position of mammalian eyelids leaves them open. Muscles must contract for the eyes to be shut. Dead creatures cannot contract their muscles so their eyes remain open after they die.

You cannot shut their eyes for them by closing their eyes with your hand. Morticians place contacts in cadaver’s eyes while preparing the body for a wake. Those contacts grip the inside of the eyelids so that they remain closed.

This is why some cultures have funerary traditions in which objects are placed over the eyes.

TL;DR: you and your loved ones won’t close their eyes when they die.

One of the reasons is flow control. You want to be able to move a lot of water slowly until it’s where you want it. Many small inlets distributed along the surface is a simple and effective method. I’m sure achieving the design you’re speculating on is possible but it would be more complex and expensive for that design to reliably achieve similar goals/metrics.

Permeable pavements like pervious concrete and porous asphalt allow some of what you’re interested in without requiring a reinvention of the wheel.