Yes, you understand it right. The button in the front could be used for such purpose. However, you’d need to write a kernel driver handling the interrupt or a daemon which would wait for the button interrupt and handle it. Processing the interrupt would not be easy because this one type interrupt has been used for more actions.
My original answer contained the use of GPIO pins, where you would need to add the button yourself, but the script which would handle the button would be quite simple.