@sbartsch: Yes this is bit confusing feature in WordPress. It also took me sometime before to get full knowledge about this.
1. By default WordPress display Latest Posts in your Frontpage.
2. But sometime, people don’t want latest post to display in Frontpage which give blog looks and want to make it like company/personal site where they have static page in Frontpage. In this case, they have to go to “Readings => Settings => Front page displays” and click on “A static page (select below)” and choose page from “Front page”.
3. But sometime, people should like to show their latest posts(Blog) in another place as they have added static page in the Front page. In this case they choose the page in “Posts page” to show their blog.
Read this for more details http://codex.wordpress.org/Settings_Reading_Screen