The best explanation I have - and mind you this is still necessarily incomplete - is that the wing forces a mass of air down, which by the second law pushes up on the wing creating lift. A plane can fly upside down with high enough AoA.
And so the "shape of an airfoil" is just a design that happens to accelerate air downward while creating minimal drag. But if a paper plane can fly, clearly, that "shape" isn't necessary.
I got to ride in a Stearman biplane once. it's easier to ignore when you're enclosed in a metal tube, but the open cockpit experience really brings this home. how am I up here without strings attached?
There are definitely witches, wizards, and warlocks involved. Airplanes are made of METAL. Air is LIGHTWEIGHT. There's NO WAY flight actually works on its own, this is bullshit. Magic fucking bullshit.
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(I think this works for rubberband/balsa wood airplanes though--do their wings usually have The Shape?)
The pressure difference between the top & bottom results in that same force and when strong enough you fly.
MAGIC.