Distribution is the action of sharing something out among a number of recipients.
The word distribution has several usages:
Mathematics
In mathematics a distribution is a generalization of a function to be able to model certain systems, inspired by physics, see distribution (mathematics).
Probability theory and statistics
In Probability theory, it refers to the way a certain number of samples can be assigned to different categories, see Frequency distribution. In Statistics, it refers to the probability that a random variable has a certain value, or falls inside a given interval, see Probability distribution. This is the theoretical counterpart behind frequency distributions.
Economics
In Economics, it talks about getting a product from the producer to the client. See distribution (economics). This incudes things like movies and video games
Computer science
In Computer science, it may refer to the practice of allocating a number of tasks to different machines, scattered over a network. See distributed computing.
Computing
With Software, a distribution is something that puts different applications in the same package. See Linux distribution for an example.
Biology
The study of the distribution of living things on the Earth is called biogeography.
Power system
In power system, the process of delivering electricity to customer is called Electric power distribution.