Raheem Sterling scored the winner from Kalvin Phillips’ through-ball in the 57th minute, lifting England to a winning start.
Arguably the Three Lions could have won by more, with Harry Kane missing a close-range chance, while Phil Foden hit the post with a low drive inside the first five minutes.
England boss Gareth Southgate put faith in Sterling, who fell out of favour at Manchester City in the second half of the season.
“I’m so pleased for Raheem to get the goal. He’s had this hex in tournaments,” Southgate said.
“I thought he was dangerous all day. He’s a good player and his goal scoring record suggests we should have faith in him.
“He was motivated to show his value today. We know well need all our attacking players through the tournament. We can make changes and well need to.”
Elsewhere on Sunday, the Netherlands blew a two-goal lead but found a late Denzel Dumfries winner to edge Ukraine 3-2 in Amsterdam.
Georginio Wijnaldum and Wout Wieghorst had scored in quick succession early in the second half to give the Dutch a two-goal lead.
But Ukraine netted twice in five goals to level the game up, first from Andriy Yarmolenko’s stunning strike and then Roman Yaremchuk’s header.
The Dutch found an avenue back to victory, with Dumfries beating Oleksandr Zinchenko to Nathan Ake’s left-flank cross to head home.
Meanwhile, Austria won 3-1 over North Macedonia in an entertaining contest where Marko Arnautovic got on the scoresheet.