Hi @JakeCham ,
The functionality of Dispatcher cache invalidation and use of .stat files is clearly explained in these articles.
https://experienceleaguecommunities.adobe.com/t5/adobe-experience-manager/what-is-the-best-approach-...
https://axamit.com/blog/adobe-experience-manager/dispatcher-clear-cache/
To understand the stat file functionality and experience the flow by yourself, I would suggest to have a simple author, publish and dispatcher setup in your local machine and enable dipatcher.log file level to debug and observe the logs to understand how page activation from the author server invalidates various page levels and how the latest content is being served. This hands-on experience will give more in-depth insight into dispatcher cache invalidation functionality.
Hope this helps!
Thanks,
Sudheer.