Confused over deployment of web applications

[Tim Wills <ad...@yorweb.co.uk>]

This is my first few days with Tomcat and the deployment of web apps has
left me slightly confused.

I have installed Tomcat 5.0.26 + Apache 2.0.49 + Mod_jk2 to create a very
basic file called "test.jsp" to write out "Hello World." I stuck it in a
newly created directory which I also called test and then added uri mapping
for this directory in the workers2.properties file. For purposes of
research, I did not add anything to server.xml in the
path_to/tomcat-dir/conf directory or created a web.xml under
path_to/test/WEB-INF in relation to this new application. 

When I restarted Tomcat + Apache, http://localhost/test/test.jsp gave file
not found but when I went to the Tomcat manager page and clicked reload on
"test" application, it worked. I rebooted the server to check and the above
page now displays simply after loading Apache + Tomcat. 

This confuses me because: 
1. I thought you must have an entry in server.xml for that application (in
this case just a simple jsp page) to work but i don't and it still works. 
2. Why didn't it show up straight after I restarted Tomcat + Apache and
before pressing reload?
3. I cannot find any adjusted settings/entries/file changes after I clicked
"reload." It's this last one which really confuses me because something must
have changed because it can't simply not work, then work without a change
somewhere taking place.

I am not having any problems because I can quite easily follow tutorials but
I would like a better understanding of what is actually going on underneath.

Cheers

Tim