Could someone explain and help me understand how formatting of widgets works within Tkinter

If I were you, I wouldn't use .grid(). Use .place() instead. You can place a widget almost anywhere on the screen with this geometry manager, and it has the added advantage of scaling down when the screen shrinks. For example:

button1 = Button()button1.place(relx = 0.5, rely = 0.5, anchor = "center")

This will put the button in the middle of the screen, no matter how much you shrink the screen.

Read more about the place geometry manager.

Hopefully this helps!

Also, pack and grid can't work together in the same master, because the program will try forever to find a solution that works for both geometry managers. Make sure that if you use grid, then stick with it.

Why is it that regardless of where I attempt to grid a label, it always remains in the top left corner?

It is because empty rows and empty columns have a size of zero.

How do I get it so I can 'freely position' the label around the window instead of it just remaining in this fixed position?

TO "freely position" a widget you can use place. It excels at letting you place widgets exactly where you want. The downside is that you have to do all of the calculations, and take care of what happens when windows are resized, fonts are different, etc. place is good for absolute positioning (and even relative positioning) but it usually results in you having to do more work and ending up with a less responsive UI.

I have a basic understanding of root.grid_rowconfigure(0, weight=1) ... However, what do the different parameters mean and what does changing them actually do for the program.

The first parameter is the row or column number that is to be configured. The weight parameter is a relative number that tells tkinter how to allocate extra space relative to other rows and columns. If there is unallocated space, it will be distributed among rows and columns with a non-zero weight.

For example, if one column has a weight of 2 and another has a weight of 1, the one with the weight of 2 will receive twice as much of the extra space. The same is true if the weights were 20 and 10 or 2000 and 1000.

Is there a way to get text into the top center of the window and ensure it remains there?

There are several ways, but the answer for doing this with only one label in the whole window is going to be different with a label at the top and other things below. With grid, you have to consider the behavior of all rows and columns. Your question doesn't show a title so it's hard to give specific advice.