I understand how we heat them, by putting energy into the system. but how do we use the energy to cool them down?
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The strategy is to take advantage of evaporation, condensation, and generally compression of a gas/fluid to move heat energy. We have a machine that uses the concepts of how a can of compressed air gets cold as you spray it in order to make itself cold in one location. This gas/fluid runs in a loop so that the supply of compressed air is continuous so we can keep “spraying” it and keep the cold coming, getting hot on one side and cold on the other. So it’s often called a “heat pump”, though the name tends to be specific to certain types of heating and cooling systems.
This is why air conditioners are always at least partially outside. There may be some outdoor unit outside your home connected by pipes, or it’s a machine you hang out your window. The hot air is just vented into the outside air. The cold air is blown into the building keeping it cool. A refrigerator gets warm behind and above itself, since that space is the “outside” for it.
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