Pterosaurs are not really dinosaurs.

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They are commonly referred to as dinosaurs but they are not really dinosaurs and also not all pterosaurs are pterodactyls, though "pterodactyl" is often used colloquially as a synonym for "pterosaur".

Pterosaurs are however more closely related to dinosaurs and birds than they are to modern reptiles.

Yep. All of those overgrown ginormous reptile that lived in Mesozoic and were contemporary with the dinosaurs are colloquillly referred to as "dinosaurs" even though are not, strictly speaking, in the taxon of "dinosaurs".

Flying reptiles like pterosaurs and pterodactyls, and also sea going reptiles like itchyosaurs and plesiosaurs, are also non dinosaur dinosaurs so to speak. And those marine creatures are more distant from dinosaurs in kinship than modern lizards are.

And when you were a kid and bought one of those little dimestore plastic packages of "toy dinosaurs" so you could play with brontos, and stegos, and pterosaurs, you also got....dimetrodon. Dimetrodon was that four footed vaguely lizard like critter with that big sail on his back. Dimetrodon lived in the Permian ( ie LONG before the dinosaurs), was not a dinosaur, and was not only not a close relative of the dinosaurs, but...is a closer cousin to YOU than to the dinosaurs.

Dimitrodon led to the "therapsids"- also know as the "mammallike reptiles" which dominated the planet for fifty million years, before they werer overthrown by the early dinosaurs. This power reversal forced the therapsids to miniaturize and become nocturnal and ….become true mammals.

It makes more sense that there was a variety rather than just dinosaurs. You learn something new everyday. We were never taught about dinosaurs in Geology.

Dinosaurs are popular. As a consequence of this, the word "dinosaur" gets genericized to refer to other groups of extinct reptiles.