A typical elephant family is comprised of a group of related females (maybe 2, maybe 40) and their young, including males younger than about 14.
Different families sometimes meet and feed in the same area. The family is led by the oldest female, the"matriarch", and the others follow her lead in every circumstance. She decides when to stop, and when to move on, and where to go.
Males are less communal, traveling sometimes among other males and at other times from family to family in search of mates. About once a year males enter a state of sexual excitement called musth, and they may fight one another for rights to a female.
Elephant bulls in musth are famously uncontrollable, and take on violent, insane characteristics--even attacking their caretakers in captivity--and during this time glands on their cheeks, called the temporal glands, swell and emit a sticky liquid which can often be seen running down their faces. While in musth they send out low-frequency calls to other females, and if one responds in the distance they will follow her.
A female who is "in heat," called estrus (and whose temporal glands will also be secreting), may not allow a male to mount her if she discovers he is young and small. Females prefer older males, and since older males ward off the younger, less experienced ones, it usually takes years before a young bull successfully produces an offspring. Once a male and female have met, they will sniff out one another to decide if the other is eligible, and if so, they will mate.
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