Changing Root Directory to run from Dist

I have a Wordpress installation to run that is structured differently to my usual workflow.

Usually, I would go with the basic Local installation, running from app>public. For this installation I require it to run from app>public>dist. Am I right in saying that .htaccess deals with this? I have limited knowledge of it and how to configure it but did take a look at the basic Local setup. It has comments saying:

The directives (lines) between “BEGIN WordPress” and “END WordPress” are
dynamically generated, and should only be modified via WordPress filters.
Any changes to the directives between these markers will be overwritten.

How can I configure my Local setup to run from the ‘dist’ folder, and do I need to change anything in the DB file to match?

I should point out that I am running Nginx (no preference here, this is what it apparently defaulted to) and from what I understand .htaccess is not recognised by Nginx, and only Apache.

What I get is a 403 Forbidden error when I attempt to access the local domain

Any help is appreciated.