Wrapping text around a figure (under the hood)

I have a question about some of the packages out there that are used to wrap text around figures. Not looking for help with code or anything, just want to understand how TeX can be told to do this, conceptually.

Based on my limited knowledge of TeX, here’s what I think might be happening: TeX creates a large vbox – with width equal to the margins of the page – to contain the image and text. It sets the height of the vbox equal to the height of the image, floats the image to either the left or right edge of the vbox container, and creates a second container, another vbox, to hold the text. The dimensions of this inner vbox are such its width, together with the width of the image is equal to the width of the outer vbox, and its height is equal to the height of the outer vbox. TeX then fills this inner box with as much of the text as it can, and when it can’t it considers the outer vbox container to be complete, and it resumes its normal box producing activities on a new line.

Is that roughly correct? Thanks.

Edit: I’m new to this forum. Is this a bad question?