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I think you have resolution of individual storylines confused with the idea of multiple endings. Multiple endings would be like in the CYOA books. In your example of LOTR we see:
1) the defeat of Sauron
2) the crowning of Aragorn
3) the fight back in the Shire
4) the gray havens where Elrond, Gandalf, Bilbo and Frodo depart middle earth leaving Samwise to complete the stories ending.
They aren't multiple endings. One ending flows into the next. If Sauron were not beaten then Aragon wouldn't have become king. And no one goes untouched by a war so the Shire had to be affected. And Elrond, Gandalf, Bilbo and Frodo were all affected in one way or another by the existence of the one ring. Two by having fought against Sauron to take the ring from him and two by having carried the ring. Once again we see the idea that no one is unaffected by a war. I believe Tolkien was making a point based on his own experiences in WWI when he wrote that part of LOTR. He had been in the trenches and seen friends die. How could anyone see that and not be affected? But the endings are not separate but all part of a whole. And an author should resolve everything of importance at the end of his/her book. Agatha Christie always let you know at the end who the murderer was. I don't know that we always found out what happened to them but we knew who they were, why they had done it, and how the crime was committed. I believe that a good many stories have such 'multiple endings' in them in that the author resolves things in an orderly manner.
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