jurisdiction

joor-iss-DIK-shun

meaning in plain English

The official right a place or group has to make and enforce rules and decide what’s fair.

for example

The small town’s police force has no jurisdiction over crimes that happen in the next county, so they had to call the state troopers.

Imagine your neighbor tries to tell you how to run your yard sale because it’s on the sidewalk in front of their house. That’s overstepping their jurisdiction—only the city council can set rules for sidewalks. Why does it matter? Because if they could make their own rules, everything would be chaos.