What is the Pure Land? The Three Pure Land sutras contain descriptions of a beautiful and serene place with trees, ponds, and palaces all made of jewels and surrounded with heavenly music and fragrance. How is this Pure Land understood by followers of Pure Land schools? Is it thought of as a place one will literally go after this life or is it more of an inspiration or source of imagery for meditation? Or something else entirely? Thank you for helping me to understand this.
It depends on the school and/or the tradition a Buddhist chooses to follow. Just so you are aware, Pureland is really only a "school" in Japan. Everywhere else in Mahayana, a kind of Pureland practice is usually taken for granted, or at least not treated as its own separate practice, like in Chinese Ch'an, for instance.

The majority of the Buddhists who aspire to be reborn in any Pureland (there is more than one) usually believe it to be a literal place you go after you die if you aspire to be reborn there. Others use thoughts of Pureland as grounds for meditation and/or prayer. Others take it upon themselves in their Bodhisattva practice to make this realm a pureland. None of these are mutually exclusive either--all three practices can be undertaken by any given person.