Select div element with role checkbox using Selenium

I am new to Selenium and I am learning the basics. I want to select a checkbox on the page with this python code:

    driver.find_element_by_xpath("//div[@id='checkbox1']").click()

Unfortunately this approach does not work. I get an error from Selenium saying that function click() does not exist for the webelement. The div element in the html page is defined like this:

    <div role="checkbox" id="checkbox1"></div>

What other functions exists (similar to click()) to select the checkbox.