You’ve got the basic idea. A database is indeed the data storage. In the web world this has traditionally been MySQL, but for simple stuff you could also use flatfile data storage (xml files i.e.)
PHP talks to the MySQL (or SQLite is also sometimes used) through a driver, it retrieves the records through SQL queries, and it then prepares the data (through loops etc…) and sends it off to the front-end (html, js) where it is displayed in the dom to the user.
PHP is just a language heavily based on C, and it is used to manipulate data, either incomming or outgoing.
I’m hopefull that with my experience in web development, the jump to JUCE won’t be very hurtfull 
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