Setting up domain email -- the process of actually registering the email addresses

Question

I own my own domain. However, the company I registered the domain with will not allow me to register any email addresses without paying for their web hosting plan -- which I don't want or need as I happily use Amazon Web Services. However, I would like to set up a few emails for this domain name. How can I do this, create these email addresses with my domain, without going through the company who registered the domain for me? I wanted to do it through AWS, but their Simple Email Service, Amazon SES, is outbound only, and Amazon otherwise seems unable to actually create email addresses for a domain.

I would like to use Google Apps as the email client, but it is unclear to me how to create the email addresses in the first place. What exactly happens when an email address is created for a domain? Is it in my control, since I control the domain? Or does the company from whom I bought the domain have the control?