Outside of cities (ex sieges etc) seem obvious enough. But as far as two armies clashing in the countryside... Did this even happen? Did Peter Jackson deceive me? Did the generals write each other to decide on a time and place? How exactly did armies come to meet?
I wrote an old answer about the Classical Greeks which isn't quite Medieval, but which mostly deals with the same factors. There was no need to arrange a time and place, since armies tended to be both difficult to hide and actively looking for each other. Since many parts of the world only have a few areas suitable for the movement, encampment and deployment of large armies, it was usually easy enough to predict where the enemy would go.