A foreign key may have either a null entry as long as it is not a part of its tables primary key or an entry that matches the primary key values in a table to which it is related.
(Every non-null foreign key value must reference an existing primary key value).
It is possible for an attribute NOT to have a corresponding value, but it will be impossible to have an invalid entry.
The enforcement of the referential integrity rule makes it impossible to delete a row in one table whose primary key has mandatory matching foreign key values in another table.