You said

Do you have suggestions for either: a. dealing with it b. getting people to answer the right question

I said

I just want to yell at people; "answer the question I asked! not the one you felt like answering that was similar to the one I asked because you thought that was what I wanted to hear about or ask about!".

Try this, except instead of yelling, say it nicely.

and I also said

One thing you could do as an example is some variation of "oh sorry, I must have phrased the question poorly, I meant (the question again, perhaps phrased differently or with more detail or with example answers or whatever)".

So I answered the question in detail.

Perhaps you aren't very good at recognizing when someone has answered your question? Obviously this is only one data point so we can't look into it too heavily, but we have at least established that this is something you are capable of doing.