so I am looking into the wordpress REST API for the first time.

I have some questions that may sound ridiculous to those that are familiar with it, but i am confused as to how it works.

So natively wordpress works by its page query ( wp_query ) to retrieve posts associated with that particular archive.

**If i was to use the REST API to query posts, on the a particular archive page, does it query all posts in the database, or does it be specific to that page's inbuilt query?**  By the structure of the API queries, it looks to be just a general search for posts, unless you specify the taxonomy.

**another question, which may sound complex, is there a feature within the API where a person can find taxonomy terms associated with posts for a particular archive page?**

in what instances ( other than creating a headless site ) would a developer choose to use the API to build queries, rather than using wp_query. Is there performance benefits to using the API over the native methods of retrieving information?


i would be grateful for any insight into this.