There's more to it than I can explain, there are some guys out there doing fluid dynamics calculations and simulations for quadcopters you can take a look at.
The simple explanation is saturation and cavitation, those are your two max points. Saturation is when an electric motor is at capacity, and you can add more amperage at this point but it will only result in heat because the motor is running at it's capacity. Cavitation (for us) is when a prop is spinning so fast that the air doesn't have time to fill in behind it before it swings through again. Picture a car doing a burn out and it's kind of the same, the prop is spinning so fast that it can't get traction on the air around it.
So to go fast (in theory) you want to deliver as much power to the motors as possible without over saturating, and keep the props spinning as fast as possible without cavitating. That's of course is childishly oversimplified as weight and wind resistance have an exponential effect as speeds increase.