Telling distance with one eye
Depth perception consists of what are called monocular cues and binocular cues. As you mention, binocular vision has a lot of advantages for depth perception, but it is not completely necessary.

Many animals, particularly those that don't need especially precise vision, have little to no binocular vision, opting instead for visual coverage in more directions by having eyes on the side of the head.

The Wikipedia page I linked at the beginning has a whole list of various monocular cues, but I will mention a few of them here as well that I think roughly outline the different "categories" of monocular cues.

Relative size is a simple one: you expect certain objects to be a certain size. You can use that information to approximate distance.

Motion parallax: moving relative to objects gives you more information. Nearby objects move very quickly across the eye when you move, far away objects do not.

Accommodation: when you focus on a nearby object, you can estimate the depth by how much the lens needs to be deformed to bring the object in focus. The brain gets a copy of that muscle signal that it can use to estimate distance for nearby objects.

Although monocular depth perception is actually quite good out in the natural world, it is possible to trick the system with sufficiently clever strategies, like many other types of optical illusions. The Ames room is one of these.