The AP_RangeFinder_MAVLink backend uses the DISTANCE_SENSOR message's orientation field to map to the RNGFNDx_ORIENT parameter (see code here)
We should consider enhancing this condition so that if the user has set the RNGFNDx_ADDR field (defaults to -1) then this is compared against the DISTANCE_SENSOR.id field. This would allow more than one distance sensor in each direction to be used.
This request comes from this wiki discussion