Error response from daemon: container - Seeking clarification on the fix

Recently, my container stopped working and moved to “exited” status. I tried starting the container by I got the error

Error response from daemon: container "container id": already exists

I managed to resolve the issue by using the following command as advised in the below link

docker-containerd-ctr --namespace moby --address /run/docker/containerd/docker-containerd.sock c rm <container id>

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any explanation on the resolution. Can someone break down the command? As always, any help is much appreciated.