People is used in international law which is often written in english, or otherwise translated to english. There it means exactly what your parent said. A group

People is used in international law which is often written in english, or otherwise translated to english. There it means exactly what your parent said. A group of individuals taken as a whole. It is often implied they have some shared culture, heritage, laws, language etc. It is never about race or ethnicity. A Kurdish person living in Norther Europe can belong to the Kurdish people on the grounds of the shared culture and heritage, and an Arab person that has lived in Erbil for over 20 years and has learned fluent Kurdish can also belong to the Kurdish people on the grounds of shared language, law, culture, etc. This is the reason taking children from of a group to be raised outside the group is considered a genocide. You are forcibly removing an child from its people, even though the child is 100% of the same ethnic makeup as the group.