Lighting, Light Fixtures, Ceiling and Exhaust Fans - wires

I recently moved into a new home. The kitchen light fixture was taken down by my painter and just capped, because I was going to install something new. I have new light fixture and not sure what to do. Three different wires with caps on the white - black - red & thin red grounding wire in coming from ceiling . Since I have installed before I conected black to black and white to white. Left red. Circuit blew. What is the red? Always only had black and white from box. What would the red be? Switch? If so how to connect to fixture.

Is the "thin red" wire a bare copper grounding wire? Is it really "thin"? That is, is the size of the copper wire smaller than the size of the other copper wires?

You said three wires, but seemed to mention four. Can you clarify?

Is there just one wire of each color in the ceiling box?

Is the box perhaps prewired for a ceiling fan?

Did you cap off the red wire to make sure that it touched nothing? It could be that this is what caused your problem.

One typical solution would be to connect fixture white to ceiling white, fixture black to ceiling red, fixture ground to ceiling ground, and to cap off and electrically isolate the ceiling black. The answers to the above questions will help determine whether the typical solution is likely to be the solution for you.