With respect to space-time tensor-product wavelet bases, parabolic initial boundary value problems are equivalently formulated as bi-infinite matrix problems. Adaptive wavelet methods are shown to yield sequences of approximate solutions which converge at the optimal rate. In case the spatial domain is of product type, the use of spatial tensor product wavelet bases is proved to overcome the so-called curse of dimensionality, i.e., the reduction of the convergence rate with increasing spatial dimension.