Draft State allows content in Assignments to exist in an unpublished (draft) state. Unpublished assignments are invisible to students and excluded from grade calculations. You can manage the state of all assignments on the Assignments Index Page, or you can manage each assignment individually.
Note: If you use Modules in your course and add an Assignment to a Module, please be aware that the state of the Module overrides the state of all module items. You may want to consider leaving Assignments unpublished until you are ready to publish the entire Module.