The explanation for a decimal is that you are looking at a piece of a number. This "piece" can be shown in different ways including fractions, percents, and decimals. Each of these ways of showing the "piece" has the same value as the other ways, it's just presented differently. So when we give 33/50 as a decimal we just have to convert it from one form to the other and there are different ways to do that. The easiest way to explain it would be to take the fraction literally... the fraction 33/50 literally reads 33 divided by 50 (the line separating the numerator and denominator means divided by). So if we do the division problem, the quotient will equal the decimal form.
Properties can help you divide because if you didn't follow them we would have incorrect answers and would be very held back in science and mathematics
