How multi-architecture images work? Explain by describing what happens when an image is pulled

Difficulty: unrated

Answer

A client makes a call to the registry to use a specific image (using an image name and optionally a tag)
A manifest list is parsed (assuming it exists) to check if the architecture of the client is supported and available as a manifest
If it is supported (a manifest for the architecture is available) the relevant manifest is parsed to obtain the IDs of the layers
Each layer is then pulled using the obtained IDs from the previous step