Server-Side Discovery: The client sends a request to a load balancer or API?

Short answer: Gateway, which then queries the service registry and forwards the request to the appropriate service instance.

Explain a bit more

Tools like Kubernetes provide built-in service discovery by assigning DNS names to services, and Kubernetes automatically routes traffic to available service instances. Example: In Kubernetes, a Payment Service might be exposed by a Service resource, and requests to this service are routed to healthy pods based on their labels.

Real-world example (ShopNest)

ShopNest splits Catalog, Cart, Order, and Payment into services so teams can deploy catalog changes without redeploying payments.

Say this in the interview

1. Define — one clear sentence (the short answer above).
2. Example — relate it to a project like ShopNest or your real work.
3. Trade-off — when you would not use it.