The storage file in the public folder is only a symbolic link (A virtual folder), when you try to access it, it will redirect you to the original folder storage/app/public.
What the virtual folder stores is the path to the original folder, so on maybe /users/pc1/projects1/storage/app/public, but when you push to server the link to the original folder will be changed for ex. /var/www/example.com/storage/app/public therefore the virtual folder will not be able to find the original folder and will stop working.