It's similar to how banknotes originally were 1:1 correlated with physical gold (or whatever) in the vault, then banks realized they could lend out more notes than they have gold in the vault.
Very similar situation with electronic vs paper dollars.
Most bank deposits are created out of thin air by commercial banks when they make loans. There isn't enough paper money to cover all those deposits.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m...