The NS, or Name Server records of a domain name, point out which servers deal with the Domain Name System (DNS) records for it. Setting the name servers of a given hosting provider for your domain name is the simplest way to direct it to their system and all its sub-records will be taken care of on their end. This includes A (the IP address of the server/website), MX (mail server), TXT (free text), SRV (services), CNAME (forwarding), and so on, so if you want to modify some of these records, you are going to be able to do it through their system. To put it differently, the NS records of a domain name show the DNS servers which are authoritative for it, so when you attempt to open a web address, the DNS servers are contacted to get the DNS records of the domain name you want to access. In this way the website that you will see will be retrieved from the proper location. The name servers typically have a prefix “ns” or “dns” and every single domain address has at least 2 NS records. There's no functional difference between the two prefixes, so what kind a host company will use depends entirely on their preference.