RE: How does IP address restriction work?

Your device has been fingerprinted (device OS, browser, hardware, screen resolution, etc.), not to mention the MAC address of your device. Your device has only one real MAC address, though it may have some ability to spoof it.

IP address restrictions barely work at all, since a person who has some technical knowledge can use VPN, Tor, public WiFi, etc. to bypass such restrictions. If a public node is restricted, just keep trying another node. Not all nodes can be blocked.