what is distant generation?

what exactly is distant generation? is it like trying to preload chunks outside of my render distance? like for example if i have the LOD redner distance to 50 chunks, but have only a render distance of 20 chunks. it tries to generate does other 30 chunks?

Can i still have LODs without distant generation then? what if i only want LODs to appear where I've been and dont mind if it looks incomplete and want to actually manually walk and generate chunks?
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