There are several kinds of tides. The ones that break upon a beach every 10 seconds to a minute are caused by sea level disturbances out in the ocean produced by such things as storms. Also, the various circulation currents of sea water can have velocity components directed towards the land which will bring water up onto the beach. As this water travels towards the beach from deep water to shallow water, its amplitude will increase until it finally 'breaks' as a full-fledged breaker, suitable for surfing etc.
Now, underlying this minute to minute activity is a slower water wave which causes an alternating pattern of high-tide, low-tide, high-tide, low-tide in most places on the Earth that are directly on the ocean. This roughly 6 hour cycle is caused by the gravitational tugging of the Moon upon the Earth. This 'tidal' pull causes the shape of the solid Earth to be not perfectly round by something like a few dozen yards over its entire 27,000 mile circumference. The Earth gets distorted a small bit, but because it is solid rock its a small effect. The water in the oceans, however, gets distorted into a roughly ellipsoidal ( football-like) shape with a much larger amplitude. The orientation of this shape changes from minute to minute as the Moon orbits the Earth, which is why the high and low tide times change all the time. The Moon causes these tides by deforming the oceans, and as the Earth rotates under this ocean bulge, it causes a high tide to propagate onto beaches. Because there are two bulges, we get two high tides, and also two low tides each day.
The Sun also causes tides on the Earth because even though it is so far away, it is very massive. These solar tides are about half as strong as the ones produced by the Moon, and they cause the so-called Spring tides and the Neap Tides. When the bulge of ocean water raised by the Moon is added the a similar tidal bulge raised by the Sun, you get a higher, high tide called the Spring Tide. When the solar low tide is added to the lunar low tide, you get the Neap Tide.
There may be even weaker tides caused by the gravitational influences of the planets Mars and Venus, but they are probably lost in the daily noise of individual tides.