Table salt is made of chlorine and sodium ions, specifically Cl^- and Na^+, which is why the chemical name is sodium chloride. These two ions are attracted together kind of like a magnet, and form a bond called an ionic bond, and so we call the bonded pair an ionic compound. All ionic compounds are salts - they are the same thing. Table salt is a type of salt.

Water molecules have a very similar property because they are charged like a magnet. This is because the molecule is bent, with positive hydrogen on one side and negative oxygen on the other. This is what allows table salt to dissolve in water - a water molecule is a more powerful "magnet" than the ionic bond, and so it tears the sodium and chlorine ions apart.

That tearing apart requires energy, and so it absorbs it from the environment. This is why water gets colder as table salt dissolves in it.

But that is not the case for all salts. Lye, or sodium hydroxide, can boil water just from dissolving in it. This is because the breaking apart of the sodium and hydroxide ions releases energy instead of absorbing it.

There are other salts like urea and potassium nitrate that absorb much more energy than table salt - so much energy that they get cold enough to be used in cold packs.

So yes, this is an extremely useful property that is used for all sorts of things all over the world, and it's something to always take into consideration in chemistry.