I got tired of knowing nothing about DNS settings so I asked Mike.

A Record

Maps a human readable host name (ex. www.google.com) to one or many ipaddress (ex. 1.1.1.1)

MX Record

Mail Exchange record points to host that handles incoming mail; because tools like thunderbird search for mx record based on domain.

NS Record

Name servers (min of 2) that are the ultimate authority on where the host name goes. No other name server is allowed to say.

SOA

State of authority record has the name servers for the domain; not 100% sure why this exists and who cares except for the fact that it is requirement.

TXT

Used if you want to do forms verfication for things like email

CNAME

Is a human readable name to another human readable name