If you just want users to download ZIP files that contain a set of data and the required user experience is that users select what they want and then download file fro use in a desktop application, then you only need to load the zipped images into cloud storage and create a feature class with the appropriate attributes to enable search. Clicking on the dataset it enable downloaded. This is not a modern user experience.
If you create a mosaic dataset that references the images and then serve that, users gain a single service that enables them to directly added the imagery to applications and use the imagery without the need to download. This provides access to the imagery without the need to download. As image services uses can export (extract sections of imagery) to be stored locally if required. Download can also be enabled, but typically is not required.
If you have a collection of imagery from different dates you can create a mosaic dataset image service that contains all the image as one service. This makes it easier to add image or make changes without changing applications. Alternatively you could serve each image as a separate dataset.