glitchplz described it pretty good, you will do well listening to his advice.
If you are under 17 and 1/2 in CA, you have to start by completing a state-approved drivers education class and you can do that online. You already mentioned looking into driversed.com - they are a good site, you can try the course before you buy it and things like that - but they are very expensive. I think their course runs for 99 right now, while you can easily find DMV approved classes for something like $20 (just use google

. If you are not concerned with the price, then driversed is the one for you.
Once you complete the course, the school will send you the certificate of completion. The certificate will be mailed, it cannot be faxed or e-mailed because the DMV does not accept those, so make sure to finish the class well in advance, it will save you another couple of bucks on rush delivery. Once you have this certificate, you will also need to sign up for driving lessons. On the contrary to what people above claim, you don't have to complete any driving lessons at this point (although you can if you want to), you just need to sign up for them and get your proof of enrollment.
Once you got those papers, you can take the test at any DMV office (making an appointment saves you some time, you can call 1-800-777-0133 to schedule the test). The permit exam has 46 questions on it, you need to get at least 39 of them right. Once you pass, you get your permit.
Now, if you have not taken any driving lessons yet, you must contact the school you signed up with and get your first 2 hours of driving with a professional. You are not allowed to drive with your parents until the professional driving instructor signs the permit. Once you got those 2 hours taken care of, you can drive with your parents and other licensed drivers who are at least 25.
From this point on, it's a cruise. You need to hold your permit for at least 6 months and complete 6 hours of driving lessons with a pro instructor. In addition to this, 50 hours of driving with parents are required. Once you are done with all this, you go down to the DMV, take the drivers license test and get your junior license that still has a curfew for a while.
Anyway, you can get more information from the link in the signature or just drop me a PM. Hope this helps