Red-black trees are self-balancing binary search trees where each node is colored red or black. Top-down deletion of nodes from a red-black tree involves traversing the tree while coloring each node red. This may cause violations of the red-black tree properties, which are fixed through rotations and recoloring of nodes. The goal is to delete nodes as red leaves to avoid fixing properties. Examples demonstrate the process of traversing the tree, finding and deleting the target node as a red leaf, and fixing any property violations through rotations and recoloring.