Square root question

I thought I knew the concept of square root that in Gre, ‘square root 4 is only 2.’
So I thought ‘y’ in the below question is only 8, but the answer is D because it can be 8 or -8. Is it because of y^2?
Could anyone please explain what I missed in the concept?
Thank you.

This is just ETS testing if you actually read the whole square/square-root rule… Square root of anything is only positive in GRE. But that’s already given, that the square root of something is equal to a positive 8.

But the question here is what all can you put under that square root to get the positive 8.

Here’s a detailed explanation

If you’re still confused let me know I’ll try to elaborate more.

yes y can be +8 or -8 since y² = 64. quadratic equations have 2 roots.