There are three different addressing schemes for display devices: direct, matrix, and raster. The purpose of each scheme is to set (or maintain) the state of a pixel to either black/white or, more commonly, a grayscale level.
Direct addressing
A direct-driven, or directly addressed display runs individual control signals to each pixel. This allows the state, whether on/off or grayscale, to be set and maintained on each pixel. For a screen size of m×n pixels, this scheme would require m×n control signals in grayscale. This is generally considered to be inefficient, and is technically impossible for modern displays -- for example, 1920 x 1080 pixels and an RGB system (3 times as many control signals needed) results in ~6 million control lines.
Matrix addressing
A matrix-driven, or matrix addressed display runs control signals only to the rows (lines) and columns of the display.