What is the role of the JOIN operator in combining data from multiple tables in SQL?

The JOIN operator in SQL is used to combine rows from two or more tables based on a related column between them (usually a key).

The main purpose of JOIN is to obtain combined data stored in different tables, such as information about orders and customers.

Example:

SELECT orders.id, customers.name
FROM orders
JOIN customers ON orders.customer_id = customers.id;

Here, JOIN combines the orders and customers tables on the customer_id field, allowing you to get the customer's name for each order.