I generally tell them my computer is taking a picture of my scene or of my figure. We generally don't go into much detail about what a digital camera does when we take a picture with it, so for the same reason we can use the same metaphor for rendering.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks