The null space of $A$ is the set of solutions to $A{\bf x}={\bf 0}$. To find this, you may take the augmented matrix $[A|0]$ and row reduce to an echelon form. Note that every entry in the rightmost column of this matrix will always be 0 in the row reduction steps. So, we may as well just row reduce $A$, and when finding solutions to $A{\bf x}={\bf 0}$, just keep in mind that the missing column is all 0's.
Suppose after doing this, you obtain
$$
\left[\matrix{1&0&0&0&-1 \cr 0&0&1&1&0 \cr 0&0&0&0&0 \cr 0&0&0&0&0 \cr }\right]
$$
Now, look at the columns that do not contain any of the leading row entries. These columns correspond to the free variables of the solution set to $A{\bf x}={\bf 0}$ Note that at this point, we know the dimension of the null space is 3, since there are three free variables. That the null space has dimension 3 (and thus the solution set to $A{\bf x}={\bf 0}$ has three free variables) could have also been obtained by knowing that the dimension of the column space is 2 from the rank-nullity theorem.
The "free columns" in question are 2,4, and 5. We may assign any value to their corresponding variable.
So, we set $x_2=a$, $x_4=b$, and $x_5=c$, where $a$, $b$, and $c$ are arbitrary.
Now solve for $x_1$ and $x_3$:
The second row tells us $x_3=-x_4=-b$ and the first row tells us $x_1=x_5=c$.
So, the general solution to $A{\bf x}={\bf 0}$ is
$$
{\bf x}=\left[\matrix{c\cr a\cr -b\cr b\cr c}\right]
$$
Let's pause for a second. We know:
1) The null space of $A$ consists of all vectors of the form $\bf x $ above.
2) The dimension of the null space is 3.
3) We need three independent vectors for our basis for the null space.
So what we can do is take $\bf x$ and split it up as follows:
$$\eqalign{
{\bf x}=\left[\matrix{c\cr a\cr -b\cr b\cr c}\right]
&=\left[ \matrix{0\cr a\cr 0\cr 0\cr 0}\right]+
\left[\matrix{c\cr 0\cr 0\cr 0\cr c}\right]+
\left[\matrix{0\cr 0\cr -b\cr b\cr 0}\right]\cr
&=
a\left[ \matrix{0\cr1\cr0\cr 0\cr 0}\right]+
c\left[ \matrix{1\cr 0\cr 0\cr 0\cr 1}\right]+
b\left[ \matrix{0\cr 0\cr -1\cr 1\cr 0}\right]\cr
}
$$
Each of the column vectors above are in the null space of $A$. Moreover, they are independent. Thus, they form a basis.
I'm not sure that this answers your question. I did a bit of "hand waving" here. What I glossed over were the facts:
1)The columns of the echelon form of $A$ that do not contain leading row entries correspond to the "free variables" to $A{\bf x}={\bf 0}$. If the number of these columns is $r$, then the dimension of the null space is $r$ (again, if you know the dimension of the column space, you can see that the dimension of the null space must be the number of these columns from the rank-nullity theorem).
2) If you split up the general solution to $A{\bf x}={\bf 0}$ as done above, then these vectors will be independent (and span of course since you'll have $r$ of them).
Best Answer
It means that performing an elementary row operation on a matrix does not change the null space of the matrix. That is, if $A$ is a matrix, and $E$ is an elementary matrix of the appropriate size, then the matrix $EA$ has the same null space as $A$.
To see why this is true, suppose first that $x$ is in the null space of $A$. This means that $Ax=\vec 0$. Multiplying both sides of this equation by $E$, we see that $(EA)x=E\vec 0 =\vec 0$, meaning that $x$ is also in the null space of $EA$. Now suppose that $x$ is in the null space of $EA$, so that $(EA)x=\vec 0$. As you mentioned, $E$ is invertible, so we can multiply this equation by $E^{-1}$:
$$Ax=IAx=(E^{-1}E)Ax=E^{-1}(EA)x=E^{-1}\vec 0=\vec 0\;,$$
showing that $x$ is in the null space of $A$. In other words, a vector is in the null space of $EA$ if and only if it is in the null space of $A$, and $EA$ and $A$ have the same null space.