For a deeper analysis of this topic, check my book: To Tame a Writer, LibreOffice Writer for Writers.
This is something that generates a lot of confusion among users, both new and old on equal measure. Let’s see if I can explain it a bit better.
When you create a numbered or bulleted list on Writer, or edit a list style, on the Position tab you’ll see something like this
What’s the meaning of each field?
For each “level” on the list (left column) you can set the position and alignment of the numbering and the left margin behaviour for the paragraph.
Aligned at (1) says where the number goes, but as numbers clearly have some width you also need to indicate in which part of the number you are measuring its position, and for that you have the Numbering alignment menu: Left (default option) indicates that the number starts on the indicated position (i.e., the position marker goes to the left of the number), Right that the number ends on that position (i.e., the numbers goes before the marker) while centred is, well, centred 🙂
Number followed by (2) indicates how the numbering must be separated from the text (if you select “tab stop” you’ll be able to set the point where that tab stop ends), while Indent at (3) indicates the left indent of the whole paragraph (minus the first line, of course, which is controlled by Number followed by).
I’d set all three lists to start at 9 to make it clear how alignment works, made use of a tab stop to separate number and first line of text and I’d also set an indent different from the tab stop to show that effect too. The first list is “left aligned,” the second is “centred” and the third is “right.”
And that’s it.
From Mind to Type 
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