I don't know about your school, but in my school there were some glaring holes in our eductaion. We did some topics extensively and others so briefly that nobody (maybe even the teacher) did not understand them properly.

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We learned a lot about the separation of power / checks and balances. Then we studied the legislative and the judicial branches in great detail. But for some reason we did not really learn what the executive is. Essentially we were told that these are the people that enforce the laws, police ..??. Thats literally all I learned.

Many people believe the job of government is making laws

Or media and education system focus almost exclusively on the legislative process and what happens in parliament. The idea is that the main function of a democracy is coming together and making laws once in a while. That is a nice story but in practice what happens in parliament has only a small impact. Still this is what everyone focuses on and what I was taught in school to be the heart of our democracy.

What is the executive

The executive are the people that by state decree have more rights than others. These are as I learned in school the policemen. It also includes the government only that for some reason nobody in school ever explained how they are in the executive. We learned that the executive are 'the people that enforce the laws'. As a kid I was wondering how does the president enforce the laws? Should that work not be part of the legislative?

Only that governing is not making laws. Instead it is making all of the decisions that really matter. Deciding on how the budget is spent. Making decisions on state run projects and state organisation. Deciding international politics, making international agreements and ultimately deciding on military action. They have almost complete freedom to act, as long as there is no explicit law constraining them. And in that case these can usually be avoided by calling for national emergencies. This executive is where the real power lies. The parliament often is just an annoyance for the government and the judicial system is an annoyance for the parliament.

But if that is the case, then why did I not learn anything of this in school? Why did we spent weeks on legislative and judicial but only a few hours on the executive? So I am wondering if I just had a very bad teacher, if I just was a particularly stupid kid, or if there is a general trend that we do not really learn where the powers lie.