I get the explanation that they have gravity and things are attracted, but why is it in a ring rather than a sphere? why do things from one AXIS get attracted but not from other?
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Usually debris around any large body (not just black holes) does start out going every which way, but eventually it settles into a ring.
Why? Simple, because objects not traveling parallel to each other are more likely to collide. When they hit another piece of debris, their velocities will average out, causing the particle to either slow down enough to de-orbit, change direction, or if one piece is significantly larger than the other it will just change the direction of the smaller debris to match it’s own.
Do this billions of times over the course of billions of years and eventually everything that’s left is going the same direction at roughly the same speed. Also the pull of gravity due to the rotation of the body can have an effect, speeding up a certain plane enough that it helps that direction dominate.
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