Lower Voltage Methods Other Than Voltage Dividing
There are probably as many ways to do it as there are engineers.  The common themes are:


Zener:

Few components
(Mostly) Immune to input variations
Not efficient at all but acceptable for low-power applications (you're powering the load through a resistor)
Used in analog or digital applications to provide a specific voltage for power or to provide a reference or to limit the "volume"  (distorts grossly when it becomes active, but it does the job, sometimes this is used artistically to create a sound, like for electric guitar)

Divider:

Few components
Passes input variations because it's actually a ratio of the input
Easily influenced by the load (sometimes this influence is done on purpose)
Not efficient at all for power (you're still powering the load through a resistor)
Used a lot in analog applications to reduce the volume or to provide a reference between supply rails

Linear Regulator

Few (IC) or many (discrete) components
(Mostly) Immune to input variations
Efficiency depends on the difference between input and output voltage (less difference is more efficient, but some headroom is required; you're still powering the load through the equivalent of a resistor, which is internal to the regulator and automatically adjusted)
Used in analog or digital applications to provide a specific, sometimes variable, voltage for power

Switching Regulator

Many components
(Mostly) Immune to input variations
(Usually) Very efficient because it's either hard-on (low loss) or hard-off (no loss) with a very short transition time (high loss), the switching frequency is then filtered out to leave the average, which is fed back to a controller.  (finally, we got away from the resistor!)
Used in digital applications to provide a specific, sometimes variable, voltage for power; not so much for analog because of the switching noise, though sometimes it might be forced into service with a ton of filtering



Note that a switcher is the only one that can also increase voltage; this is because it naturally has AC inside of it (the switching frequency) that can be passed through a transformer or at least an inductor.