I'm with you on that. Generally I consider myself above average intelligence, but what I started studying water I realized my brain is Abby Normal.
My light grasp of the info is at an end user level, and then just barely. You'll be looking at two aspects. pH and flavor. So if you start with water that has nothing in it, the pH is about 7, but since there's nothing in it, it's easily swayed. Meaning it takes less acid to drop it and less alkaline to raise it. When you figure out what your grain bill is going to do to the water, you determine how much acid or alkaline to add to reach your target pH. Which will usually be less than with well water. Then, you get to add juuuuust the right amounts of the flavoring elements needed to bring that beer to perfection. Might as well be versions of calcium, since beer benefits from it. CaCl for malty beers, CaSO4 for hoppy. Or some combo. Maybe a touch of magnisium... or a touch of salt. Maybe your well water has too much of one, not enough of another? Easy to add, not so easy to remove. But RO or distilled is a "blank canvas". You only add, no need to remove.
Enjoy the study, but don't get frustrated. You really only need to know "how", not so much "why".