The relational link between point, segment, polygon or raster maps and an attribute table, is provided by the domain. The domain should be of the ID or Class type. The domain should be used both by the map(s) and the table. The table contains additional columns with the attributes.
An attribute table can also be linked to a domain (domain Class or ID). Then all maps using that domain automatically use the attribute table which has the same domain.
It is the class names in a domain Class and the IDs in a domain Identifier that provide the relational link between the elements in a raster, polygon, segment or point map and the records in an attribute table.
Whether a map or a domain has an attribute table can be seen by viewing the properties of the map or the domain.
See also: