You can connect one node with only two nodes and that means unidirectional, or you can connect one node with more than 2 and that is bidirectional, or even multidirectional.
@David how does that affect the approach to solving the problem? When do we use the unidirectional system and when do we use bidirectional? When you talk about nodes, my mind goes to 1D and 2D physics and meshing. Is that what you meant by node?