You can configure prefilters on the look-up table to filter the records available in a look-up.

Also, the look-up is always filtered using other reference columns of the reference that is used for the look-up. For instance, when a look-up reference from shipping_order to customer_address uses customer_id = customer_id and customer_address_id = customer_address_id, the look-up for customer_address_id will be filtered on the customer_id specified in the current shipping order.