What does the Spatial Join tool accomplish?

The Spatial Join tool in ArcGIS Pro is designed to combine attributes from one feature layer to another based on their geographic relationships. This functionality is crucial when analyzing spatial data, as it allows users to enrich their datasets with relevant information by determining how geometries in one dataset relate to geometries in another.

When using the Spatial Join tool, you can specify the type of spatial relationship you are interested in, such as intersecting, containing, or being within a distance. This means you could take data from one layer, such as points representing schools, and join it with a layer of polygons representing neighborhoods, to create a new dataset where each school includes information about the neighborhood it falls within. This capability enables analysts to perform spatial analysis and visualization more effectively, by leveraging the connectivity of spatial data.

The other options represent distinct capabilities within GIS, but they do not describe the specific function of the Spatial Join tool. Creating new polygons from overlapping features pertains to operations like overlay or geometric union, while calculating distances or summarizing tabular data focuses on quantitative analysis and does not inherently involve the spatial relationship aspect that defines the Spatial Join.