The correct option is
A alternate courses of action to choose from
According to Robbins, the resources(capital, land, labour, materials, ...) are always limited. Every resource have multiple uses.
The problem before any organisation or manager is to choose the best alternatives which can maximize the profit or minimize the cost of production. Linear programming is the method which is used to select the best possible alternatives from the all alternatives.
According to William M. Fox, "Linear programming is a planning technique that permits some objective function to be maximized or minimized within the framework of given situational restrictions"
Therefore, the linear programming is the process of selecting best courses of action to choose from various alternatives.