Zoom is zoom. Telephoto is just a term for a stronger zoom. Nothing is "distorted", it's just with a strong enough zoom you focus in on a tiny segment of a scene.
For example Chad in this photo of yours, if you had a larger zoom, from the exact same perspective you could make Calgary's suburbs look completely dwarfed by mountains:
I just blew up that section in Paint but if you had a "telephoto" you could get the exact same photo but clear/focused.
And the same, Chad if you took a $50 point-and-shoot and took a picture in the same direction, your original image posted above would be a small square of that unzoomed point-and-shoot image.
Both credit Chad photo:
https://flic.kr/p/qvrNs5 user:
https://www.flickr.com/people/66175113@N06/