For what it’s worth, this is now being separated out a bit to be clearer. You can use `git switch <branch>` to switch to an existing branch, `git switch --create <branch>` to create a new branch and switch to it, and `git restore <file>` or `git restore --source <ref> file` to restore a version of a file to your working directory.

Checkout can move your head to different commit and it can copy files to your working tree from a non-checked-out commit. What's it's third function?

It can create a branch with -b, based on a branch of your choice (not necessarily current).

I constantly use this, having created an alias:

  [some other branch]$ git cob feature/foo123 main

Eh, I can squint and see that as a special-case of moving your head to another ref - the `-b` merely flagging "if this branch doesn't exist, create it instead of erroring".

It's a bit like building a train station is a special case of arriving to it :)

It's arriving at it with trucks and bulldozers and other equipment repeatedly, but essentially yes.

maybe like mkdir + chdir