Using Widgets/Editable content on the site’s front page

I’ve googled this but haven’t really found a clear answer.

So I know you can use widgets on the sidebar of pages. That’s easy.

What about on the front page? Or header/footer?

I want to set up my front page with three blocks of various content. Is there a widget I can use to set the text or content of those blocks? So say yo could edit the text in a WYSIWYG editor? Or use a different widget or plugin in one of those plugs to display some sort of dynamic content?

I know I can hardcode the front page, but I’d like something the end-user can easily adjust.