Technically, a cookie is baked once from dough, and a biscuit is baked, cut, then baked again. "Bis-cuit" literally means "cooked twice".
In reality, it's more of a regional difference, as other commenters have said. In Australia, we have the "ANZAC biscuit", which is connected to our military service (this needs a whole other discussion to explain it, but for now you just need to know that it exists). If you look at the recipe, you'd say "well, it's a cookie!" However, we've specifically chosen to call it a biscuit, with the intention of, "please don't call it a cookie." :)