There's an adjusting nut for the cable, it's located a few inches aft of the handbrake lever. That's for cable-stretch.

There's automatic adjuster mechanisms at the wheels. It's inside the caliper for disks, & it's inside the drum for drum brakes. That's to keep it working as the pads/shoes wear down.

The pump method is for the auto-adjusters at the wheel. If you get new pads & retract the pistons too far, you pump the brakes 50 times to allow the auto-adjuster to 'catch up'. There's usually something similar for drum brakes, where you back up & hit the brakes to let them ratchet themselves into correct adjustment.

Don't use the cable adjuster to compensate for screwed-up wheel adjustment. They're for different reasons.