The picture we are to glean from the passage is that this life-giving river generated life on every side. That is, the people of the street of the holy city, touched by this God-sourced river, flourished, irrespective of whether they drank from this side or that (Psalm 1:3; Jeremiah 17:8; Ezekiel 19:10).
2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.