Does banding let you assign combat damage however you want among blockers?

Normally, an attacking creature's controller has no say in how damage is divided among multiple blockers — the defending player orders the blockers and the attacker must assign lethal damage to each in order (CR 509.2). Banding is the exception to this rule.

Under CR 702.22j, if a banding creature (or a band containing a creature with banding) is blocked, the attacking player — not the defending player — chooses how to divide that blocked band's combat damage among all creatures blocking it. This is the core mechanical benefit of banding on offense.

Importantly, the attacking player still must assign at least enough damage to each blocking creature to be lethal before moving on, following the same general damage-assignment rules (CR 510.1c). Banding changes who assigns the damage, not the rule that lethal damage must be reached in sequence.

Example: You attack with a 4/4 creature with banding and a 2/2 creature without banding (they form a legal band). The opponent blocks with a 3/3 and a 1/1. As the attacking player, you decide how the 6 total power is split — you could assign 3 damage to the 3/3 and 3 to the 1/1, or 4 to the 3/3 and 2 to the 1/1, etc., as long as you meet the lethal-damage requirement for each.

Banding does not help you assign damage among multiple attackers — that's a separate, complementary ability: when a banding creature is blocked, the defending player assigns damage from the blockers among the band (CR 702.22k). So banding has two distinct damage-assignment effects depending on who is attacking and blocking.