This basic implementation helped me understand this function. Hope it helps others as well:
arr = [(1, "A"), (1, "B"), (1, "C"), (2, "D"), (2, "E"), (3, "F")]
for k,g in groupby(arr, lambda x: x[0]):
print("--", k, "--")
for tup in g:
print(tup[1]) # tup[0] == k
-- 1 --
A
B
C
-- 2 --
D
E
-- 3 --
F