What role do amplification attacks play in DDoS, and how do they differ from basic flooding?

Amplification attacks are a type of DDoS where attackers exploit publicly accessible servers (like DNS or NTP servers) to amplify the volume of traffic sent to the target. The attacker sends a small request to the amplifier server with the target's spoofed IP address, causing the server to send a much larger response to the target, magnifying the attack's impact.