how can I see a folder in iCloud drive with documents from my computer on my other devices? Seems like it only works with iApps like Pages etc.

I have iCloud drive set up on all my apple devices and all is current, but I have a older I put in iCloud drive on my laptop. How can I get to those documents in that folder on my iPhone and iPad? Is there also a way to grant access like in the good old days for someone to drop a file to me in a quasi-public folder in iCloud drive. We did this years ago in OS7...why not now?