Conceptually I always understood the difference between the JRE and the JDK to be that "the JRE lets you run Java" and the "the JDK lets you develop Java".
To me this is the same as having libc vs. libc-dev or xlib vs xlib-dev or whatever installed.
I don't really understand the branding distinctions but I would imagine there's still room for a smaller download that lets you run .JARs without including a javac and profiler and whatever else you might want in order to develop and debug them?
[EDIT: Nevermind, I see that text all applied to Java 8 but not to Java 11 or Java 15. And implicitly as others have explained in this thread the reason being that there is no official use case for someone just wanting a JRE to run a .JAR they have; they should not just have a .JAR they should have obtained all of it together from the application vendor...]
Which Java package do I need?
Software Developers: JDK (Java SE Development Kit): For Java Developers. Includes a complete JRE plus tools for developing, debugging, and monitoring Java applications.
Administrators running applications on a server: Server JRE (Server Java Runtime Environment): For deploying Java applications on servers. Includes tools for JVM monitoring and tools commonly required for server applications, but does not include browser integration (the Java plug-in), auto-update, nor an installer. Learn more
End user running Java on a desktop: JRE: (Java Runtime Environment): Covers most end-users needs. Contains everything required to run Java applications on your system.
reply