This study examines the conceptual features of Fault Detection, Isolation, and Restoration (FDIR) following an outage in an electric distribution system.This paper starts with a discussion of the premise for distribution automation, including its features and the different challenges associated with its implementation in a smart grid paradigm. Then, this article explores various concepts, control schemes, and approaches related to FDIR. Service restoration is one of the main strategies for such distribution automation, through which the healthy section of the power distribution network is re-energized by changing the topology of the network. In a smart grid paradigm, the presence of intelligent electronic devices can facilitate the automatic implementation of the service restoration scheme. The concepts of service restoration and various approaches are thoroughly presented in this article. A comparison is made among various significant approaches reported for distribution automation. The outcome of our literature survey and scope for future research concludes this review.