Deploying a React application to Netlify using CircleCI provides developers with greater control over the deployment process by integrating continuous deployment capabilities. The tutorial outlines how to set up a React project locally and then configure it for deployment using both Netlify and CircleCI. It involves creating a new React site, setting up a GitHub repository for the project, and configuring a decoy branch to prevent parallel deployments from Netlify while using CircleCI for actual deployments. The process includes installing necessary tools such as Node.js, Netlify CLI, and configuring environment variables for authentication. The CircleCI configuration involves setting up a pipeline that checks out the project, installs dependencies, builds the application, and deploys it using the Netlify CLI, ensuring only the main branch triggers the deployment. This setup enhances flexibility by allowing the execution of custom steps in the deployment workflow, thereby preventing two concurrent deployment processes and enabling verification of successful deployments by checking changes on the live site.