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Adventurers League is the official organized play campaign for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. The campaign primarily uses the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.
If you've played RPGs before you may know that different game masters sometimes have their own house rules for their games. Maybe they don't allow multiclassing. Maybe there are no halflings in their game world. Because of this a character you play at one table may not be welcome in someone else's game.
Adventurers League Organized Play provides a global set of rules and guidelines for playing 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. By using these rules for character creation and general gameplay you can take your character to any Adventurers League game. An Adventurers League game is any game that follows these rules, whether it's at a game store, a convention, in a home, or online.
You can always find the most recent version of the Adventurers League rules on the DM's Guild here. You'll need to sign up for a free account, but the pack has no cost. While there are a bunch of files in this pack, new players only really need to deal with a few documents.
There are currently TWO different Adventurers League campaigns taking place. These campaigns don't interact with each other, so characters from one campaign cannot be played in adventures for the other campaign. Because of this, please pay attention to the games you're signing up for! A Forgotten Realms campaign character cannot play an Eberron adventure, and an Eberron character cannot play a Forgotten Realms adventure.
The first (and primary) campaign is the Forgotten Realms campaign. Rules for this campaign can be found in the above pack in the AL Player's Guide for the Forgotten Realms. Most adventures you see in the events will be for this campaign as it has the most content available. You can read a little about the Forgotten Realms at https://dnd.wizards.com/dungeons-and-dragons/what-is-dd/forgotten-realms.
The second campaign is a bit different, and takes place in the Eberron campaign setting. Rules for this campaign can be found in the Oracle of War Player's Guide in the above pack. You can read about the Eberron campaign setting at https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/279-welcome-to-eberron-an-introduction-to-a-realm-of.
Generally speaking, if an Adventurers League event you're looking at doesn't explicitly state that it's an Eberron game, then it's a Forgotten Realms campaign game.
Most questions you may have about how Adventurers League works will be answered in the Player's Guide for the particular campaign. There is also a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document in the pack that contains answers to some more specific questions (like how certain spells like wish are handled).
Armed with the Player's Guide for the campaign you wish to play in as well as either the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook or a copy of the free basic rules, it's time to create your character! Adventurers League characters start at level 1 and must be created using the rules in the respective campaign's Player's Guide. How they advance in level and acquire other rewards (such as gold and magic items) is explained in the Player's Guide for that campaign as well.
You can use any character sheet you like. You can scribble all your info down on a napkin if you want--just as long as you can easily read it and find the info you need when you need it, you're good. Free character sheets are available on the D&D website at https://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/trpg-resources/trpg-resources
In the Adventurers League Player and DM Pack you'll find a logsheet. At the time of this writing it's the S9 AL Logsheet and S9 AL Logsheet Fillable documents in the pack (the fillable document has fillable forms in case you want to just keep an electronic copy). This log sheet is only used for the Forgotten Realms campaign. Eberron campaign characters will get a sheet from the DM at the end of each adventure (more info on that can be found in the Oracle of War Player's Guide).
When you complete your Forgotten Realms adventure you will record the session on your logsheet. Information about how to fill out the logsheet can be found in the Player's Guide for the campaign.
If you don't like dealing with physical logs or PDFs there is also https://adventurersleaguelog.com where you can log your adventures (and print off hard copies of the logsheets if you wish). This is a fan-run website and is not affiliated with Hasbro or Wizards of the Coast, but is a well-run site
If you're just starting Adventurers League and have created your character, you'll be looking at events that indicate they're for Tier 1. This generally means it's for character levels 1 through 4. As you advance in level be sure to read the description of the events, as there are a handful of introductory adventures that are only for character levels 1 and 2. For more information about Tiers and what they mean, refer to the AL Player's Guide.
Once you've played an adventure with a character that character cannot play that adventure again. This is one reason why keeping good logs is important--so you know what you have and haven't played.