The concept of “free will” comes from the perspective that there exists “two” or “me vs not me”, and that there exists “control vs freedom” or a zone where we under the control of someone/something vs a a zone where we are not under the control of that someone/something. Often, it intends to denote a struggle or friction between these 2 parties.

The base fundamental of this idea itself comes from an illusion of the existence of “two” or “me vs not me”.

In a simple way as Sri Krishna says it – we have control or right over our actions, but no control or right over the outcomes.
Our free will is present in the sense that we can always choose how to act, how to respond, whether to follow our same karmik patterns or to change them, etc. For free will to manifest, one must connect to his soul because only the soul is “free”. If not connected to the soul, then he is simply acting under the influence of his patterns – and there is no free will.
This is also why it is said that karma doesn’t effect people who become highly spiritual – the general interpretation has become that spiritual people are above karma, however the intention behind this is to mean that if someone is highly spiritual or connected to their soul, they stop being enslaved by their own patterns and they start making conscious decisions.

Like, if you are made to decide something under the influence of compulsions, fear, threat, greed, drugs, etc – are you free? Are you really deciding? Is there really a choice? No… Whereas, if you are made to decide something with your consciousness, when you are not bothered by fear, failure, success, greed, etc etc – then are you bound by anything? No… you are free… and there is the free will.