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A canonical tag is a line in a page's head that names the preferred URL for that content. When the same page is reachable at several addresses, the canonical tells search engines which one to index and which one should collect the ranking value, instead of splitting it across duplicates.
Rarely from anyone copying anything. They come from the plumbing. A site reachable with and without www, over both http and https, with and without a trailing slash, and with tracking parameters appended by every ad campaign, can expose one page at a dozen addresses without anybody noticing.
It is a strong hint, not an instruction. Search engines can and do ignore a canonical that contradicts the rest of the signals on a site, for instance when internal links all point somewhere else. It is also not a redirect. Visitors still reach the non-canonical URL normally, which is the point.
The first is a site-wide canonical pointing every page at the homepage, which is a common template mistake and effectively asks search engines to drop the rest of the site. The second is a canonical left pointing at a staging domain after launch, which quietly tells search engines the real site is a copy of something they cannot reach.
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