How to handle dynamic checkboxes inputs in a form using HTML or PHP or JS

my problem is that I have a form that will add a book to a database, and the authors of these books should be from the database, so the way I want to do this is to make a php loop that will create a checkbox in the form for each author, so the user can just choose the author using them. my problem now is how to process the form? how do I know which authors the user picked in other words?

what other ways can I approach this problem other than checkboxes?(there is no restrictions, this a personal project I just know php, html, JS and Jquery)

sorry for not providing any code and I hope I explained it will.