That's weird...
I have a similar situation:
Gewässer: table with data of rivers and ditches
Gewässersegmente: feature class containing the river axes
Gewässerflächen: feature class containing polygons of the water area
Bauwerke: feature class containing buildings along the river
When I enable that option in the table (Gewässer) and select a river there, ArcGIS automatically selects everything linked to that river.
Are you sure you checked the option "Select related records"? It sounds like you tried the "Related Data" menu above it, which indeed lets you only choose one related feature class.
Have a great day!
Johannes