Living in Germany and having only driven in Mexico (City) as far as the Americas go, I admit to not understand what yellow lines signify to US drivers, like at

Living in Germany and having only driven in Mexico (City) as far as the Americas go, I admit to not understand what yellow lines signify to US drivers, like at all ;) At my place, they're used for temporarily "overriding" regular white lines eg at construction sites, and only for that purpose.