Does banding let you assign combat damage as a group rather than individually?

Banding is a keyword ability defined primarily in CR 702.22. Its most powerful effect concerns combat damage assignment: when a creature with banding attacks, it can form a band with other attacking creatures. The player who controls the band assigns all combat damage dealt to the band (by blockers) in any way they choose among the banding creatures, rather than each blocker assigning damage independently.

On offense, if a creature with banding attacks alongside any number of other creatures (up to one non-banding creature may join a band), the defending player's blockers deal their damage to the band, but the attacking player decides how that damage is distributed among the banding creatures (CR 702.22b, 702.22e). This gives the attacker enormous control over which of their own creatures absorb damage.

On defense, any number of creatures with banding can block the same attacker, and again the defending player assigns all combat damage from that attacker among the banding blockers however they choose (CR 702.22c). Even a single creature with banding, when blocking, grants this grouped damage-assignment privilege to the defending player for that attacker's damage.

Concrete example: You attack with a 2/2 creature with banding and a 3/3 creature without banding (forming a legal band). Your opponent blocks the band with a 4/4. Normally the 4/4 would assign its 4 damage however blockers' controller chooses — but since the band contains a banding creature, you (the attacking player) assign the 4/4's damage. You put all 4 damage on the 3/3, saving your 2/2 from dying.

Note that the banding creatures themselves still deal their damage to the blocking creature(s) normally. Banding only changes who assigns the incoming damage and allows free distribution of it; it does not change the total damage dealt or any other combat rules (CR 702.22).