It’s my understanding that when a computer or a server needs to connect to another server connected to the internet, a ‘handshake’ needs to be performed so that they can share data, but how are two servers able to communicate without broadcasting all of their data to every other server connected to the internet as well?
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The Internet is almost exactly like the real-word physical postal system sending letters. Everything from the way mail is addressed to how it is carried to how it is processed through sorting facilities is uncannily similar to how the real Internet system functions.
When one server talks to another, they don’t broadcast their message for the entire Internet to hear for the same reason the whole world doesn’t read their mail when one business sends a letter to another. The message is a private letter. Barring the chance that someone on the inside of the “Internet postal system” (i e. the ISP) is intercepting the messages and reading them, that letter only gets sent to its intended recepient (the other server) and no one else opens it. With modern encryption, opening the message to peek probably wouldn’t even be helpful to an eavesdropper anyway. The little padlock in your web browser’s address bar is evidence of this kind of protection at work.
A server is not a special machine. At least, not from the perspective of the Internet. Sure, a rack server in a datacenter will be specially built to help it do the job of being a server, but to the Internet, every server is just another computer. They connect to and handshake with other servers the exact same way your computer would. Just like how, to the postal system, a business is just another address that can send and receive mail the same exact way you do at home.
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