Configure Apache2 to host REST API

Since I want to learn more around hosting a REST API and also development of such (with PHP) I am wondering about the following:
I’ve got my API files in the path /var/myapi and configured the directory like this:

<Directory /var/myapi>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Require all granted
</Directory>

The Virtual Host is configured like this:

<VirtualHost *:8080>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/myapi/
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

In my api directory I want to have the index.php is my router. So, the $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"] should contain the full path the client is requesting.

Unfortunately, when accessing http://localhost:8080/books the path /books will be handled by apache which is trying to find a file in /var/msapi/books. The path “/books` will not be reflected within my routers PHP code.

I think I somehow need to change settings in Apache but do not know what to look for. Any advice?