What type of relationship does a foreign key establish in database management?

A foreign key establishes a relationship between two tables in a database by acting as a reference to the primary key in another table. This means that the foreign key can be part of various types of relationships, depending on the specific design of the database and how the tables are structured.

In a one-to-many relationship, a single record in one table can relate to multiple records in another table. For example, a customer (one) can have multiple orders (many), where the customer ID is the primary key in the customers table and the foreign key in the orders table.

In a many-to-many relationship, a foreign key can facilitate the connection between two tables that both have multiple entries related to one another. An example might be students and courses, where a student can enroll in multiple courses, and each course can have multiple students. This usually requires an additional junction table to manage the relationship.

In a one-to-one relationship, one record in a table corresponds to exactly one record in another table, with a foreign key linking them together. For instance, this might be used to connect a user's profile to their login details.

Given this versatility, a foreign key can establish all these types of relationships depending on how the data model is structured, confirming that the correct