Throw charged particles across a magnetic field and you generate big-time electricity. Here, in the upper atmosphere, the Sun's detritus produces a hundred trillion watts. A million amps. The real thing. This kind of power is more than enough to goose oxygen electrons to leap into higher orbits.
People imagine correctly that the aurora occurs over the North Pole.
There are two. And there's the other, quieter pole, the magnetic Pole to which compass needles point. The two are far apart, and it is the magnetic Pole that hosts the northern lights. Any aurora visible from your backyard is just a small piece of an immense glowing ring centered at the magnetic North Pole. Here's where Canadians and Americans get lucky.