How does USB communications work in a mouse?

My Logitech M-UAE96 USB mouse is working properly except for the left button, which does not register all clicks I make and is even more finicky when I try to keep it pressed (drag and drop is hard to do because it releases immediately, and even when single-clicking the pressure is so intermittent that it registers as multiple clicks). Having seen that the mouse works fine if I remove the top cover, I guess there's a broken wire in the cable and the cover pinches on it in a way that pulls apart the two sections of the broken wire. I would have guessed that there was a wire dedicated to the lef

Question by Zachiel on Super User, licensed CC BY-SA. We show a short excerpt and link to the original thread as credit.