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There’s a newer type that uses magnets, but old-school carrier catapults (from the 1950s to today) work with steam. Steam is easy to use on an aircraft carrier, because it’s powered by a nuclear reactor, which is basically a giant steam engine. Since the carrier is constantly making steam, you have a constant supply of steam that you can reroute to various systems around the ship to do stuff with. The catapult was one of those systems.
Steam can be pressurized to an incredible degree, as long as you build a strong enough steel tank to hold it. So the catapult is just a piston held inside a really really strong steel tank. You hook the airplane’s front wheel on top of the piston, then lock the piston in place. Then you pump steam into the tank – lots and lots and lots of steam, until the pressure rises to immense levels. Then you unlock the piston, and suddenly all that steam pressure has an escape route! It expands rapidly, forcing the piston forward at incredible speeds. The piston drags the airplane with it, and once it’s going fast enough, the airplane unhooks from the piston and flies away.
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