I’m confused about the one-per-year limitation for making an IRA rollover. Can you explain?

If you take a distribution from an IRA and want to roll it over, you may only do this type of action once within a 12-month period. But there’s no limit on making direct transfers of IRA funds from one IRA account to another. This is handled by a trustee-to-trustee transfer. The financial institution to which you want to make a transfer will provide you with the necessary paperwork to complete it.